JOHANNESBURG - The U.S. military has switched from trying to degrade Islamic extremist groups in West Africa’s sprawling Sahel region to merely trying to contain them as their deadly threat increases, a new U.S. government report says. About 6,000 U.S. military personnel are deployed across Africa, the report says, including 500 special operations forces in Somalia and about 800 personnel in West Africa. The security situation in Burkina Faso “is deteriorating faster than anywhere else in the Sahel,” says the new report, citing AFRICOM. Extremist groups linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida in West Africa “are neither degraded nor contained,” the new report warns, citing AFRICOM. The U.S. military in the Sahel largely supports the militaries of France and local countries in their fight against the extremists.

Source: thestar February 12, 2020 09:22 UTC