[…] For the better part of two decades, U.S. commandos—Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and Marine Corps Raiders, among them—have been fighting quasi-wars across the African continent. From Tunisia to Somalia, special operators have been involved in combat while working with local allies against a plethora of terrorist groups known in military parlance as violent extremist organizations or VEOs. […]
But halfway through their campaign, America’s commandos are already failing, according to a recent Pentagon report. That analysis, authored by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research institution, paints a troubling portrait of the security situation on the continent, showing a 43 percent spike in militant Islamist activity and sharp increases in violence in 2020 as part of a steady and uninterrupted rise over the last decade. […]
The partially redacted SOCAFRICA plans, which were issued in May 2018, specifically state that SOCAFRICA aims, in conjunction with other U.S. government agencies and regional partners, to enable the Sahelian states to “degrade and contain ISIS-GS,” the acronym for the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. Almost three years later, the terrorist group is far from crippled. “ISIS-GS still provides a significant threat,” said the defense official. Läs artikel