AFRICOM: African Terror Threats Aren’t Necessarily Threats to the US

Commander: Groups may not have intent or capability to carry out attacks

US African Command (AFRICOM) has seen substantial troop cuts over the past year, and that’s normally when a commander would start trying to scare Congress into an increase in spending. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, however, took the opposite approach.

Testifying to the House Armed Services Committee, Gen. Waldhauser conceded that many of the “threats” that AFRICOM is fighting are not only not real threats to the US homeland, but not necessarily even regional threats within Africa.

The general said many of these groups just have a jihadist ideology and some link to criminal activity of some such, then “hang out a shingle and say ‘we’re with ISIS today’.” He added this would happen whether or not the group had “intent or capability” to launch attacks.

Though he conceded that the cuts would impact US operations within Africa, he said he didn’t believe it would great any “dire situation” for either the US or for local partner forces. He added there were no cuts in Libya or Somalia, the two places AFRICOM retains authority to conduct attacks.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.