- Commander of U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Marine Corps General Michael Langley discusses his recent travel in north and east Africa, the new AFRICOM Strategy, and U.S. military and counterterrorism cooperation in response to ongoing developments in Africa
MODERATOR: Good morning to everyone from the U.S. Department of State’s Africa Regional Media Hub. I welcome our participants logging in from across the continent and thank all of you for joining us today. We are very pleased to be joined by the Commander of the U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Marine Corps General Michael Langley, who will discuss his recent travel in North and East Africa, the new AFRICOM Strategy, and U.S. military and counterterrorism cooperation in response to ongoing developments in Africa.
We will begin today’s briefing with opening remarks from General Langley, then we will turn to your questions. We will try to get to as many of them as we can during the briefing. With that, I turn to you, General Langley, for opening remarks.
GENERAL LANGLEY: Thank you very much, and thanks for the opportunity to talk to you today, because I really just want to be able to focus on U.S. AFRICOM’s strategy going forward. But just set the stage: What our strategy emanates from is our National Security Strategy put out by the President of the United States.
For Africa, my approaches – our charge to do the last couple of years – to be able to ensure that all our activities and our partnership-centric type approach should be African-led and U.S.-enabled. So we still follow those first principles in any engagement with African militaries across the continent.
And so as we go forward and we ensure that we are – harvest these shared objectives, but also shared values going forward, to address some of these security issues – whether it be violent extremist organizations or transnational criminal organizations as well, to address the challenges of climate change and some of these layered type drivers of instability that that brings – population displacement, tribal conflict, or planned conflict across the region, across the Sahel, even (inaudible) activities in Somalia. All of those are addressed with our African partners first, and then I listen, learn, and then we come up with a collaborative solution set to be able to execute and go forward.
So yes, I did have a – recently came out of the trips across this summer, across the Maghreb, if you will – big exercise, African Lion in Morocco where we had over 20 countries participating in that exercise for a collaborative and interoperability-type objectives to address all of the security challenges that are before us.
And then also went to Algeria. Went to Algeria, Tunisia, and then culminated with – in Libya as well. This is all about unity – unity of effort – because we know that on the global stage there’s other pressures across the Maghreb and a possibility of a startup again of violent extremist organizations. Each one of those countries had different types of challenges.
So I was there to listen. I was there to learn and understand their approach for counterterrorism. So that’s what that trip did for me.
Now I’m back in East Africa. I try to come here every couple of months to sit down with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Somalia to address some of the challenges that he has, but also the opportunities and way forward in his campaign against al-Shabaab. And now I’m here in Kenya because we know that what’s coming up at the end of the year is the transition of ATMIS, the – ATMIS is that construct of the African Union transition force that will be sundowning or coming to an end.
But then AUSSOM, the civilian support program, is in the nascent stages or formulation of what countries, troop-contributing countries, are going to participate in that new construct. But I know that sitting down with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, his fight and campaign against al-Shabaab is going to continue; building up at the same time and doing force generation and building up the Somali National Army is understood. It’s like flying a plane while still building it. He understands that, but he’s very, very optimistic that we’re going to be successful, and I think also is going to be the new construct that’s going to help them get there.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you, General Langley. We will now begin the question-and-answer portion of today’s briefing. If at any time you would like to ask a question live, please indicate that by clicking on the “raise hand” button and then typing your name, media outlet, location, and question into the “questions and answers” tab.
Please make sure to use the Q&A tab and not the Chat box. Also be aware that from our side, we only see your Zoom logon. If we cannot tell who you are, we cannot call on you.
We ask that you limit yourself to one question only related to the topic of today’s briefing: the new AFRICOM Strategy and U.S. military and counterterrorism cooperation in response to ongoing developments in Africa.
General Langley, our first question will go to a reporter from Raadraac in Somalia, and they ask: “How has Somalia evolved, or Somali evolved, in all the time you’ve been watching the country? And what sort of support has the American military given the Somali armed forces that has contributed to the success?”
GENERAL LANGLEY: Thanks. That’s a great question. You know, like I said. I was earlier this week in Somalia engaging with the Somali forces and Somali leadership, and of course President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud – started with him – but then was able, had the opportunity to meet with General Muhyadin to get – to be apprised and briefed on his operational design and where he is in his campaign in the south, in the Jubaland and even across the central region.
So they are in stages. They are still in stages of liberation in some areas, but stabilization in other areas. So, they’re mindful of that, that their operations are ebbing and flowing, because I’ll just use some of their narrative – yes, they have a young army; it’s a building army; so, there are some successes and some setbacks. But I think the morale across the forces is building and they’re very enthusiastic that they’re going to be able to keep al-Shabaab back on their heels going forward in future operations. Even with the transition of ATMIS to AUSSOM. And AUSSOM’s mission concept is to have logistical support across the board to enable these forces to carry on offensive operations.
MODERATOR: Thank you. The following question is from Mr. Ricardo Teixeira from DefenceWeb in South Africa, and they ask: “Does the U.S. Army have plans to assist the Kenyan and Somali army in containing or combating al-Shabaab in East Africa? Has AFRICOM considered or attempted to engage in bilateral co-operation with SADC?”
GENERAL LANGLEY: So the question – that’s a great question. With the construct of troop-contributing countries within Somalia, we know one thing: This is owned by the Government of Somalia. We are contributing to his – to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s efforts for stabilization, stabilization activities.
So, as we well know, Kenya has been a big part of this in the past to present, and I will be engaged with the Kenyan military leadership today to see what they’re saying or what’s – what are the prospects for the future. They have been a tremendous partner with the Somalia National Army, institutionalizing, professionalizing, helping them be able to operate in various areas, collaborating along their border to ensure that – the defeat of al-Shabaan.
So yes, I see that Kenya – the KDF – is an anchor country. They’ve proven that with their successes in helping the Somali National Army hit their operational objectives. So absolutely. Just going forward, I will get more today, information today, as I sit down with the CHoD.
MODERATOR: Thank you, General. The next question comes from John Vandiver, who’s on the call, and he asks: “Since departing your bases in Niger, can you detail how AFRICOM has
adapted its force posture in Western Africa, especially in Benin and the Ivory Coast, to deal with the growing terrorism threat in the region?”
GENERAL LANGLEY: Yes, 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.
MODERATOR: Great, thank you for that answer, General Langley. Now to the next question, from Ms. Patty Nieberg from Task and Purpose, and she asks: “What is being considered as the U.S. looks at opening new bases or outposts in Africa?”
GENERAL LANGLEY: Well, let me just say when we talk about bases, when we talk about establishing a footprint, as some people will call it, I say that when we look at a – when we engage with the countries that have various challenges, whether it be transnational crime organizations, violent extremist organizations, or other type challenges, like I said, that’s a listening and learning tour and understanding and looking at what the U.S. can provide through
the whole of government. That’s why AFRICOM – what defines AFRICOM is that we’re a 3D organization. And when I say 3Ds, please indulge me – let me explain that.
The three Ds is made up of diplomacy – all the things and activities and investments the State Department brings in the diplomatic realm. And then also to development – the U.S. Agency for International Development, all their portfolio of things for – that address stability and responding to crisis. And then the defense element – that’s where U.S. AFRICOM comes in. Collectively, we work together to be able to address some of the challenges these countries have and what they invite us in to do. So whether they ask for us to establish posture there, or do they want us just to come there for temporal engagement to build institutional capacity.
So I don’t define things as far as bases, but I will say this: our ability to respond to crisis. So, there are some contingency locations that we do have across the continent to respond to crisis, enable. But not just our crisis, but theirs as well.
I went to Libya last year after the floods. Having access to Libya to be able to provide for the people in the Derna region that were affected by the floods was an example of how we operate, and being able to bring in relief supplies, and across all the challenges across West Africa. As you can see that when we pulled out of – when we pulled our American citizens and others out of Sudan when Burhan and Hemedti started a civil war in Sudan back in 15 April 2023. That’s an example of us being able to posture our forces to be able to go in and pull out American citizens and other citizens of other countries.
MODERATOR: Great, thank you, General. The next question comes form Mr. Joseph Haboush from Al Arabiya, and he asks: “Can you talk about Chinese and Russian influence in the AFRICOM AOR, particularly after the U.S. withdrawal from Niger and other subsequent scheduled withdrawals?”
GENERAL LANGLEY: Okay, that’s a great question, and let me say this: When we have engaged with our African partners, we don’t give them an ultimatum of who to choose for a security partner. We have a value proposition going forward, but also, we want a complete understanding, and we want them to have – our partners to have – a complete understanding of our initiatives and how we can work together to achieve shared objectives.
Now, that being said, I know that since 2022 when I took command, a lot of my efforts to be able to come in alignment with some of these countries on how we’re going to approach the challenges has been distorted through misinformation or disinformation, trying to state that – untruths of what U.S. AFRICOM was trying to do with a particular country. Misinformation and disinformation has stoked a lot of instability across civil society and across some of these militaries. For example, across the Sahel.
You know, we were there, as far as a shared objective to fight terrorism, but then, as you well see, that across the region the Russian Federation had activities in the information space to be able to effect false-type ideologies in civil society as far as the clear intent of what AFRICOM was trying to do to fight terrorism with them, collectively.
So, I’d say that, yeah, from the PRC across – excuse me, far as the Russian Federation across the Sahel, it’s been destabilizing – destabilizing from Central African Republic all the way into Libya and across the Sahel. Some of those false ideologies, disinformation, has been destabilizing across these countries. And the PRC – the PRC, they have been known to put out misinformation and disinformation across the continent as well.
MODERATOR: Thank you. We have time for one last question, and the last question goes to Andres from Financial Times in Nairobi, and he asks: “Can you comment on growing concerns of Somalia’s al-Shabaab collaborating with Yemeni Houthi rebels on the Red Sea?”
GENERAL LANGLEY: I’ll just say this: I’m concerned about it. I’m concerned about it. And that’s – the overall – the things going on in the Red Sea is different threats starting to emanate from the Red Sea and from Yemen. I am concerned about it. We’re watching it closely and stand ready to work with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and advise him where he needs it to be able to address some of these new challenges across all of his territories across the Somali country.
MODERATOR: Thank you. General Langley, do you have any final words?
GENERAL LANGLEY: Yes, thank you for the opportunity. So the AFRICOM approach, what defines us – again, and I will just have to amplify that it is African partner-led, U.S.-enabled. So, across our theater strategy, taking hits – taking opportunity to be able to hit upon objectives, shared objectives, that will beget prosperity, stabilization activities across the countries, across the continent, and the countries that invite us in to work with them to achieve these objectives. That’s what’s essential. That’s what I think has been working across the board, whether it’s North Africa, whether it’s in Southern Africa, in the East, and the West – that our approach is the same and consistent, and we’re going to collectively through the 3D process of development, defense, and diplomacy achieve those objectives. And we welcome the partnership with our African – African countries to partner with us to achieve those high-stated national interest goals.
The Special Briefing was organised on September 12, 2024 by Africa Regional Media Hub at AFMediaHub@state.gov.; part of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs and works to connect U.S. policy makers and experts with media in sub-Saharan Africa.
