In West Africa, U.S. Military Struggles for Scarce Resources as Terrorism Threat Grows
Tensions with Iran almost scuttled a major international training exercise in the Sahel.
By Lara Seligman | February 24, 2020, 6:00 AM
NOUAKCHOTT, MAURITANIA—Every February, hundreds of special operations forces from around the world gather in West Africa for Flintlock, a unique U.S.-led exercise that provides critical training for regional militaries struggling to counter growing terrorist activity in the Sahel.
This year, the threat is more urgent than ever. Despite the presence of 4,500 French troops and a 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force, violent extremist attacks in the region have skyrocketed in the last 18 months. The Sahel saw the most rapid increase of such events of any African region in 2019, with roughly 2,600 fatalities from 800 attacks—a number which has nearly doubled every year since 2015. Burkina Faso bore the brunt of the new violence, primarily from groups linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, as the locus of terrorist activity shifted from Mali across the border.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/24/in-west-africa-u-s-military-struggles-for-scarce-resources-as-terrorism-threat-grows/
