Could it be that the Pentagon can’t account for $824 billion in expenses because of its covert operations in Africa, among other places? How many US taxpayers knew their government had secretly sent about 1,100 troops to Niger, allegedly to fight t*rrorists in the Sahel?
Comedian and @thedailyshow host @jonstewart raised these questions in a 2023 conversation with US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks after the Pentagon had failed yet another audit. Then, last month, it announced it had failed its seventh audit.
News that US military personnel were operating in Niger broke out in October 2017 after ISIS fighters ambushed and k*lled four Special Operations troops in a firefight near the remote village of Tongo Tongo.
In January 2020, a dozen al-Shabaab fighters k*lled five US troops in Manda Bay, Kenya, upon attacking the US base.
These incidents blew the cover off undisclosed US military operations in Africa. Previously secret 2019 AFRICOM planning documents show 29 bases in 15 African countries or territories, with the highest concentrations in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, busting the Pentagon’s claim of a ‘light footprint’ on the continent.
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SOURCES:
https://theintercept.com/2020/02/27/africa-us-military-bases-africom/
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/exclusive-inside-secret-world-us-commandos-africa
https://pulitzercenter.org/projects/extent-us-special-forces-involvement-africa