Pentagon looks at reducing force in Africa
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering withdrawing nearly all U.S. commandos from Niger in the wake of a deadly October ambush against a Green Beret team that killed four U.S. soldiers.
Three Defense Department officials said the plans, if approved by Defense Secretary James Mattis, would also close military outposts in Tunisia, Cameroon, Libya and Kenya, as well as seven of the eight U.S. elite counterterrorism units operating in Africa.
The shift in forces is part of the Pentagon’s defense strategy to focus on threats from China and Russia. But they represent a more severe cut of Special Operations forces in Africa than initially expected, leaving a lasting, robust military presence primarily in Somalia and Nigeria.
The proposal does not say that any additional troops would return to Africa even as Special Operations units gradually draw down. Officials said that could reverse progress that has been made against al-Qaida and Islamic State group affiliates, while diminishing alliances across Africa as both Russia and China move to increase their influence.
The military’s Special Operations Command is authorized to spend up to $100 million annually to support partner forces around the world under the program, known as 127e. The command spent $80 million during the 2017 fiscal year to finance 21 of the programs worldwide, Gen. Tony Thomas, the Special Operations commander, told Congress in February.
The Pentagon’s defense strategy, issued in January, represents a renewed shift from fighting the insurgent wars of the last 16 years to large stateon-state conflicts.
To comply with the proposed change, the U.S. Africa Command will reassign hundreds of U.S. troops who are currently spread across the continent. That move is expected to be carried out over the next 18 to 36 months, but one Defense Department official said the timeline was likely to be accelerated once the proposal was approved and final.
In an interview in July, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, head of the Africa Command, said other training teams could still rotate in periodically for days or weeks of instruction if the Pentagon reduced its permanent troop presence in Africa.
The defense strategy that was unveiled in January, coupled with the deadly attack in Niger, has fast-tracked decisions by Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to end some of the missions in Africa, military officials have said.
In the interview, Waldhauser said that other combatant commands, such as those that cover the Middle East and the Pacific, will face similar changes. But one Defense Department official familiar with the deliberations said the Pentagon’s changes would largely affect the Africa Command, which was created only in 2007, years after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan got underway.
Another Defense Department official said the move to close the commando outposts would greatly diminish U.S. influence in Africa and could prove to be shortsighted.
The first official, however, said local African forces had become increasingly capable in fighting extremists on their own.
U.S. troops on the ground in Africa have already found their missions scaled back by stringent restrictions placed on Special Operations forces after the Oct. 4 ambush in Niger. Extremists linked to the Islamic State group attacked the Green Beret team after its search for a militant near the Mali border, leading to an hourslong gunfight that killed four U.S. soldiers, their translator and four Nigerien troops. A Pentagon investigation found failures at every level of the mission.
Since then, U.S. commandos have been refocused strictly to advising and assisting missions from within the walls of their remote bases. During a news conference Tuesday, Mattis said the Pentagon was changing training requirements for Special Operations teams to be better prepared for missions in Africa.