Pentagon forces have quietly expanded to a dozen new African air bases
Evidence
While the command’s secrecy makes getting a full picture difficult, evidence suggests that Africom’s on-the-ground expansion has been rapid and broad. A 2014 article in the U.S. Army’s magazine Army Sustainment identified nine forward operating locations in the Horn of Africa alone. Likewise, a series of Washington Post reports have shown that since 2007, the Pentagon has quietly created “about a dozen air bases” in countries including Niger, Chad, Ethiopia, and the Seychelles for drones and surveillance operations over Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 994
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
Related
- The Pentagon has quietly built roughly a dozen African air bases since 2007 (similarity 0.97)
- The Pentagon quietly built dozens of African bases despite Africom’s official claims. (similarity 0.95)
- US military presence in Africa grew from hundreds to up to eleven thousand troops (similarity 0.86)
- U.S. military presence in Africa now exceeds that in Latin America and the Caribbean (similarity 0.84)
- Pentagon had preplanned African bases before the Ebola deployment (similarity 0.82)
- U.S. military operations in Africa exceed publicly disclosed scope (similarity 0.82)
- The U.S. military network has expanded geographically despite closing giant Cold War bases (similarity 0.80)
- US military has spent $30 billion on African bases and programs since 2001 (similarity 0.80)