WASHINGTON - U.S. defense and intelligence officials are voicing renewed concerns about the spread of increasingly capable terror groups in Africa, warning some have become so powerful it is no longer possible to “degrade” them.
The warnings, part of a newly released report by the Defense Department’s inspector general, echo earlier warnings by the U.S. military’s Africa Command about growing threats to the U.S. homeland.
They also come as the Pentagon unveiled a proposed $740.5 billion budget for next year focused not on terrorism but on competition against China and Russia.
"The terrorist threat in Africa remains persistent, and in many places, is growing,” according to Defense Department lead inspector Gen. Glenn Fine, pointing to the latest intelligence assessments of the various African affiliates of al-Qaida and Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS.
“The threat posed by al-Shabab and ISIS-Somalia in East Africa remains 'high,' despite continued U.S. airstrikes and training of Somali security forces,” Fine wrote in the report, based on information from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
In West Africa, the report concludes the terrorism landscape is just as concerning.
U.S. Africa Command “has shifted its strategy from ‘degrading’ these VEOs (violent extremist organizations) to ‘containing’ them,” the report states.
The report also quotes U.S. Africa Command as saying the various terror groups in West Africa “have the potential to spread through the region and impact Western interests.”
Tuesday’s report on U.S. counterterror operations in Africa is the first from the inspector general to be released to the public — previous versions were classified.
But public concern about the escalating dangers presented by terror groups in Africa dates back to at least November, when the United States hosted a meeting of the global coalition to defeat IS.
"We agreed at the working level that West Africa and the Sahel would be a preferred, initial area of focus for the coalition outside of the ISIS core space and with good reason,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the time on Twitter. "ISIS is outpacing the ability of regional governments and int'l partners to address the threat.”
Senior U.S. Africa Command officials began raising concerns at about the same time, describing both IS’s African affiliates and al-Shabab as threats “to U.S. interests in East Africa, as well as to the U.S. homeland.”
More recently, following the January 5 al-Shabab attack on the Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya which killed three Americans, those concerns have risen to new heights.
Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of U.S. forces in Africa, told lawmakers outright that, “some of those groups threaten the American homeland today."
Just this week, the State Department and the FBI announced the launch of a new joint terrorism task force with Kenya, the first located outside of the U.S., to push back specifically against al-Shabab.
