The U.S. military will no longer aim to degrade the Islamic extremist groups in West Africa’s troubled Sahel region, and will instead fight to contain them, a new U.S. government report says. The report says that there is need for consistent pressure on extremist groups to weaken them. The report singles out the security situation in Burkina Faso to be degrading faster than any other part of the Sahel. Extremist groups affiliated with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida in West Africa’s Sahel “are neither degraded nor contained,” it warns, citing AFRICOM. France on the other hand plans to deploy more troops in the Sahel to tackle the growing threat of extremism.

Source: The North Africa Journal February 12, 2020 15:56 UTC