(Washington) President Joe Biden has decided to re-establish a military presence in Somalia to fight Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab jihadists there, approving a request from the Pentagon which deemed the rotation system decided by Donald Trump at the end of his term.
Posted yesterday at 1:51 p.m.
Mr. Biden “has approved a request from the Department of Defense to reposition American forces in East Africa, in order to re-establish a small persistent military presence in Somalia”, a senior American official told the press. anonymity.
Nearly 18 months after the withdrawal of some 750 US military personnel who were deployed in the Horn of Africa country, “less than 500” US special forces soldiers will be stationed in the country again, he added. .
He did not specify the date of their arrival in this country ravaged by the Shebab insurrection and threatened by famine due to a drought of historic proportions, simply indicating that it “will take a little time” to deploy them all.
Donald Trump had ordered in December 2020, just before the end of his mandate, the withdrawal of American troops from Somalia, authorizing only rotational missions. However, these comings and goings represented a risk for the American soldiers and wasted their time, forcing them to transport their equipment at the start of each rotation and to send it back at the end of their stay, and the rotations were interspersed with periods of absence. .
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “deemed this model of episodic missions to be inefficient and increasingly unsustainable,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
The “reinforced” Shebab
The senior US official hinted that Biden’s decision had more to do with the security of US forces than with Sunday’s election of a new Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, after more than a year. procrastination and political crisis around the organization of the ballot.
Somali leaders’ support for cooperation with the United States in the fight against Islamists has been “constant” in recent years, he said. “We have successfully cooperated with the Somalis” despite changes in government, “and we are confident that we will continue to do so under the new administration.”
The decision to re-establish a military presence “rationalizes the irrational apparatus we inherited”, he added. “It was irrational because it created unnecessary and high risk for US forces every time they entered and left the country, and we got less benefit from it despite this increased risk.”
The two American officials refrained from specifying which soldiers would be sent, but the personnel sent so far to Somalia belong to the American special forces. They specified that they were already positioned in neighboring countries and that this deployment would not change the American military posture in East Africa.
“The objective is to allow a more effective fight by local forces against the Shebab […] which have strengthened and pose a threat,” Kirby said.
The radical Islamists, who have been leading an insurrection in the country for 15 years, have intensified their attacks in recent months, notably carrying out a double attack in the center of the country on March 24 (48 dead), then a major assault against a base of the African Union force (10 dead according to an official report).
The Pentagon spokesman assured that there was no question of American forces being directly engaged in fighting against the Shebab.
“I want to recall that these forces have been and will continue to be used to train, advise and equip the (Somali) partner forces, in order to give them the means they need to disrupt, weaken and monitor the Al-Shabaab”, declared Mr. Kirby to the press.
“Our forces are not currently engaged directly in combat operations and they will not be in the future,” he said.