{"id":58795,"date":"2020-01-17T12:27:02","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T04:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=58795"},"modified":"2020-01-17T12:27:04","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T04:27:04","slug":"us-to-decide-on-africa-presence-in-two-months-says-top-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=58795","title":{"rendered":"US to decide on Africa presence in two months, says top officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States
will make a decision on the level of its presence in Africa, particularly in
the Sahel region, in about two months, Washington\u2019s top military officer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington has some 7,000 special forces on rotation in Africa carrying
out joint operations with national forces against jihadists, particularly in
Somalia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no explicit timeline,\u201d the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of
Staff, General Mark Milley, told journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley was on a plane to Washington after a meeting in Paris with his
French counterpart General Francois Lecointre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll probably get Secretary-level decisions in a month or two, maybe six
weeks, something like that,\u201d he added, referring to Defense Secretary Mark
Esper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esper has announced his intention to implement the national defense plan
outlined by his predecessor, Jim Mattis, that refocuses the Pentagon\u2019s
efforts on the US\u2019 strategic competitors \u2014 China and Russia \u2014 at the
expense of the anti-jihadist fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, Milley said the US wants to reduce its military presence in
Africa, just as French President Emmanuel Macron was gathering his
counterparts from Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania in an effort to bolster the fight against jihadists in the Sahel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French officials were alarmed, with a presidency source saying the US made \u201cirreplaceable\u201d contributions to Sahel operations \u2014 particularly in
surveillance and air-to-air refuelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France has 4,500 soldiers deployed as part of the so-called Barkhane
operation in the Sahel-Saharan strip, an area as large as Europe, to fight
against armed extremist groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sahel countries also said they hoped Washington would maintain its
\u201ccrucial support\u201d in combating the Islamist extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley said that the US has no intention of withdrawing completely from
Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people think that we are \u2018pulling out of Africa.\u2019 I think that
is a mischaracterization and an overstatement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe question that we are working with the French on, is the level of
effort we are supporting the French with. Is it too much? Too little? About
right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley added that, upon his return to Washington, he would pass on the
requests from Paris to Esper for a decision. — NNN-AGENCIES
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Stateswill make a decision on the level of its presence in Africa, particularly inthe Sahel region, in about two months, Washington\u2019s top military officer said. Washington has some 7,000 special forces on rotation in Africa carryingout joint operations with national forces against jihadists, particularly inSomalia. \u201cThere is no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213,208,209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58795"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}