AFRICOM chief Gen. Stephen Townsend issued a statement Saturday reporting that US troops will be leaving Somalia, and moving to other bases in East Africa. There are about 700 troops involved.
Though he was vague on where the troops are going, existing East Africa bases necessarily means either Kenya or Djibouti. Townsend insists the US will remain engaged in the region.
In the long run, those troops will probably move beyond AFRICOM, as most of the military wants to shift its focus deeper toward Russia and China. These troops are likely to be part of a new Asia pivot.
The Trump Administration saw the US return to the ground in Somalia decades after its pullout in the Clinton Administration. Little was accomplished, but the US carried out a lot of airstrikes.
“A move out of Somalia has been in the works for at least a month, ever since U.S. officials told Reuters that President Donald Trump was considering the move as part of a global pullback”
And somehow moving troops to another base in East Africa qualifies as a “global pullback”?
Sure, like massive debt is considered ” wealth”