A senior U.S. general has said Africa will be a new front line for the U.S. in its war against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).
General Joseph Dunford said Monday that because of ISIS’s defeats in Iraq and Syria, the group “has aspirations to establish a larger presence” on the African continent.
He said the Pentagon would advise President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about the “the allocation of forces that meet what we see as the threat, what we anticipate the threat to be.”
The U.S. military has deployed almost 800 personnel to the Sahel region to aid the French-led battle against extremist factions there and elsewhere in West Africa, including Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda-affiliated entities. A total of 1,300 U.S. special forces are deployed in Africa.
[contentcards url=”http://www.newsweek.com/us-general-says-new-frontier-against-isis-africa-pentagon-weighs-more-troops-691259″ target=”_blank”]