The US said it was aware of how violent extremist organisations were spreading and moving towards the northern borders of coastal West African countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin and Ghana.

The Commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), US Marine Corps General Michael Langley, who disclosed this during a webinar, explained that his country was, therefore, engaging the countries to listen to them on the way forward to address the challenges and to help defeat terrorism across their borders, which he described as very essential.

General Langley, in a virtual press briefing for journalists across the globe on his recent travel to North and East Africa, as well as the new AFRICOM Strategy and US military and counterterrorism cooperation in response to ongoing developments in Africa.

The digital press briefing was organised by the US Department of State’s Africa Regional Media Hub.

AFRICOM

US AFRICOM supports African governments by helping build capacity in their armed forces, which is necessary for a government to counter violent extremists and respond to crises. AFRICOM support to African armed forces includes training, exercises, equipment sales and several other security cooperation efforts to help develop militaries and build relationships.

Learning campaign

General Langley said as part of his travel, he went on a campaign of learning and listening tour to Ghana, Togo, Benin and Cote d’Ivoire to see how the US could partner them to address these shared challenges of the threats they faced.

“I went and I engaged with all of these countries to look at their prospects and listened to what threats – because I knew that the threat of JNIM, al-Shabaab, ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Sahel, AQIM, were all resident in these countries across the Sahel - Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

But now they were metastasizing and moving towards the northern borders of the coastal West Africa states of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin,” he said.

Touching on US army withdrawal from Niger, he said they were able to execute it safely and orderly without any incident, adding that the way forward so far as security cooperation in the Sahel was concerned would be determined by their national command authorities who would dictate what depth and breadth the relationship was going to be.

On Kenya’s assistance to the Somali army in containing al-Shabaab in East Africa, General Langley commended Kenya for its tremendous partnership with the Somali National Army in helping them to be able to operate in various areas, including collaborating along their borders to ensure the defeat of al-Shabaab.

Trip

Talking about his trip to Africa, he said he visited Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and across the Maghreb, where he learnt to understand their approaches to counter-terrorism.

He also visited Kenya and Somalia in East Africa, where he met with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to discuss the challenges he had and the way forward in his campaign against al-Shabaab.