The U.S. government has revealed that terrorist groups, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda, are expanding their presence in West Africa and are advancing towards Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Benin.
This was announced in a statement from the U.S. Department of State Africa Regional Media Hub, summarizing an interview with U.S. Marine Corps General Michael Langley, Commander of U.S. Africa Command.
General Langley explained that these groups are exploiting regional weaknesses to establish a foothold in areas with less secure structures. He also confirmed that the U.S. completed a peaceful withdrawal from Niger, following demands by the ruling military junta, CNSP.
The focus has now shifted to coastal West Africa, where the U.S. is collaborating with countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Benin to counter the increasing terrorist threat. Diplomatic talks are ongoing to define the U.S.’s role in this effort, led by the State Department and national command authorities.
He said: “First and foremost, we executed without incident a safe and orderly withdrawal from Niger in accordance with the CNSP’s demands. And then the way forward will be determined as far as what capacity of security cooperation will be across the Sahel, whether we’re talking about the new alliance or coalition of the Alliance of Sahelian States of Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. That’s to be determined.
“But we’re going to stay engaged with them on conversations, but State Department is actually going to dictate or our national command authorities will dictate what depth and breadth of the relationship is going to be.
“But in the interim, yes, we are pivoting to some degree of likeminded countries with democratic values and shared objectives and shared challenges across coastal West Africa. So yes, we’re in talks with Cote d’Ivoire and in talks with Ghana and Benin as well as we start to reset and recalibrate some of our assets.
“But I will just say, I need to establish a precursor. When we started this, I went and I engaged with all of these countries to look at their prospects because – and listened to what threats – because I knew that that threat of JNIM, al-Shabaab – excuse me, excuse me, JNIM and ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Sahel, AQIM, were all resident in these countries across the Sahel, and Burkina Faso, and Mali, and Niger. But now they were metastasizing and moving towards the northern borders of the coastal West Africa states of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.
“So I went on a campaign of learning and a listening tour to see how we can partner with them to address these shared challenges, because all these constructs, all these violent extremist organizations do have aspirations of attacking the United States homeland as well. So going there and listening as the way forward to address these challenges and to defeat terrorism across their borders was essential.”
“So yes, we are in consultations and administrated through the diplomatic realm to decide what level of capacity – what do they need to be able to successfully counter terrorism,” the US Army Commander added.
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