US President Donald Trump has announced a new counter-terrorism strategy that reduces America’s military footprint in Africa, favouring short campaigns and cooperation with local authorities over long-term troop deployments.

 

The policy, which he calls “a return to common sense and peace through strength,” expands the definition of terror merchants to include drug cartels, left-wing ‘anarchists’ and groups targeting Christians worldwide.

The Strategy Revelations contained in a new counter-terrorism policy suggest Washington will abandon its long-held approach of targeting terror merchants in Africa as part of wider governance-building.“In Africa, we have two clear goals that depart from the nation-building and interventionist policies of the past,” it says.

”The latter reinforces an argument Trump made to Nigeria last year after a series of Boko Haram and ISIS attacks on schools, markets and villages. At the time, Trump claimed, falsely, that Nigerian extremist groups had specifically targeted Christians. In fact, both Christians and Muslims were killed in the violence.

For Africa, however, the policy shows Trump will be reluctant to send or station troops without definite timelines. It says any deployments will be short campaigns intended to eliminate threats and withdraw.“After decades of forever wars that did not serve the interests of the American people, we are set on bringing home our troops and downsizing our global footprint,” it says, while insisting this will not blunt US focus on threat groups in Africa capable of attacking American interests.

In Africa, the US has worked mainly through the US Africa Command (Africom), headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Africom has supported African Union forces in Somalia (AUSSOM), to which Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti contribute troops, through aerial raids supporting ground operations against al-Shabaab militants.

Recently, the US withdrew about 5,000 troops from Germany, following wrangles with European allies after they refused to join the Iran war to secure the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has not said whether Africom will remain based in Europe. For Africa, the new policy borrows heavily from the earlier Security Strategy publicised last year.

It says the US is “rebuilding bilateral counter-terrorism relations with African governments who had been ignored or insulted by Biden-era neocolonial policies focused on globalist left-wing cultural hegemony.”The policy argues resurgent threats in parts of Africa are the result of mistakes by past administrations. It names West Africa, the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, Mozambique, Sudan and Somalia “where parts of ISIS have re-established themselves and al-Shabaab maintains its tribal-based Islamist insurgency.”State Department officials have recently indicated efforts to mend ties with Sahelian countries Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, now considered the epicentre of extremist violence on the continent.

During the Joe Biden administration, Sahelian states expelled US troops, stopped collaborating on counter-terrorism with Washington and turned to Moscow. A recent surge of violence that overwhelmed Russian mercenaries is among factors driving renewed ties with Washington.“We will continue to work together with governments threatened by groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates who threaten us as well, and assist them with actionable intelligence and CT partner-force development until our shared foes no longer pose a serious threat to either them or us.”Certain measures will remain unchanged, including routine designation and targeting of global terror networks with sanctions and travel freezes.“While America is not a neocolonial power set on shaping African nations in its image, we will not permit terrorist groups operating on the continent to massacre Christians with impunity.”Beyond Africa, the policy accuses China, Russia and Iran of “sponsoring terrorism” by helping extremist groups acquire arms. For Iran, Washington says it considers Tehran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz an act of terror.

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