AFRICOM ready to push the budget; says troops withdrawn from Somalia will remain in East Africa – Africa

STUTTGART, Germany – The U.S. Africa Command is slated to get nearly $ 40 million more than the Pentagon requested after lawmakers added funds to the headquarters budget, citing concerns that it lacks evacuation capabilities. of victims.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, which was published by lawmakers last week and is expected to pass with bipartisan support in a matter of days, calls for a boost for AFRICOM, even as the military prepares to withdraw from Somalia. as ordered by President Donald Trump. .

The Pentagon requested $ 239 million from AFRICOM, but after negotiations between Senate and House lawmakers, that increased by $ 38.5 million, budget documents show.

The imminent departure of nearly 700 soldiers from Somalia, announced by the Pentagon on Friday and expected to be completed in early January, is unlikely to end the need for better evacuation capabilities in the region.

US troops in Somalia are tasked with conducting counterterrorism operations and training, advising and assisting Somali forces, primarily in their fight against the al-Shabab terror group. There is also a small contingent of the Islamic State in Somalia, but it does not have al-Shabab capacity, defense officials said.

Al-Shabab seeks to overthrow the US-backed Somali government and establish a hard-line Islamist nation. It is active across the country and has carried out high-profile bombings and attacks in Somalia and neighboring countries, including the 2013 attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, which left 67 people dead.

More recently, he claimed responsibility for an attack on the Manda Bay airfield on the Kenyan coast of southern Somalia, which killed an American soldier, Spc. Henry Mayfield Jr., 23, and two Defense Department contractors, Dustin Harrison, 47, and Bruce Triplett, 64.

Troops leaving Somalia will be repositioned in East Africa, in countries like Djibouti and Kenya, military officials said. That would allow US special operations troops to move in and out of Somalia quickly, as needed.

“Our presence in Somalia will decrease significantly, but US forces will remain in the region and our tasks and our commitment to partners will remain unchanged,” AFRICOM commander Gen. Stephen Townsend said in a statement Friday.

“This action is not a withdrawal and an end to our efforts, but a replenishment to continue our efforts in East Africa,” the statement said.

A report by the Department of Defense inspector general released on November 25 said AFRICOM has seen “a definite change” in recent months in al-Shabab’s approach to attacking US interests in the region. AFRICOM has said it believes al-Shabab is the most “dangerous, capable and imminent threat” on the continent, according to the report.

While the budget documents do not detail how the additional funding would support casualty evacuation, reducing alert times for rescue aircraft and mobile surgical teams could help increase survival rates for US military personnel deployed to remote locations in Africa. , according to a 2019 Rand Corporation report.

In addition to the casualties at Manda Bay in Kenya, AFRICOM lost four Army special operations soldiers in an ambush in Niger in 2017.

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  U.S. Soldiers from Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa advance toward a target during the French Desert Command Course, Nov. 4, 2020, at an undisclosed location in Djibouti. The US Africa Command is poised to get more money in the 2021 defense budget than the Pentagon requested, and has said that troops withdrawing from Somalia will be repositioned elsewhere in East Africa.

  PETER THOMPSON / US AIR FORCE