Thursday, October 24, 2013
The Pentagon has no plans to scrap the US
military's Africa Command despite growing pressures on the defence budget, the
general who leads the headquarters said on Wednesday.
As it prepares for another round of automatic budget cuts,
the defence department is looking at cutting back spending on regional
headquarters and senior positions, fuelling speculation that Africa Command
could be dissolved and its responsibilities taken over by other commands.
But General David Rodriguez, head of Africa Command, said
"that is not part of the plan right now".
"We will continue to look at that in the future, but
right now the United States believes that the focus of having a
headquarters
focused on Africa to improve the effectiveness of our military support
to the state department in the region is going to remain separate," he
told
reporters in a teleconference.
The four-star general added that "right now there are
no plans to consolidate".
Africa Command or Africom, created in 2007, has overseen an
expanding role for the American military across the continent, focusing on
countering Islamist militants through training and arming partners in the
region.
"We've always had an interest in Africa. What is new
over the past five years is that we're more engaged, we're more direct, it's
more co-ordinated, it's more strategic than it's been in the past,"
Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the same
teleconference.
Political controversy
The command is based out of Stuttgart, Germany, after US
officials ran into political controversy trying to find a location for its
headquarters in Africa.
The command has operated with an annual budget of about
$296m in recent years, though that does not cover the cost of a major US base
on the continent, Camp Lemonnier at Djibouti, which has been funded under
war-related "overseas contingency operations."
Over the past decade, the US military has built up a
logistical network across East Africa and beyond, securing access to key
airfields and ports.
The Pentagon has tended to prefer a light footprint in
Africa, gathering intelligence while relying on allies to take direct action
against al-Qaeda-linked groups in Somalia, Mali and elsewhere.
But earlier this month, the US military staged stealthy
raids with commandos in Libya and Somalia. The raid in Tripoli captured a
long-sought al-Qaeda figure who had been on a wanted list for years, Abu Anas
al-Libi, while US special operations forces in the Somali assault ran into
heavy fire and did not succeed in seizing a targeted Shabaab militant.