U.S. Special Operations Forces, the Senegalese military and other African troops gathered in the northern city of Thies to mark the opening of a three-week training programme aimed at increasing security in the region.
“The situation we are in now is one of increased terrorist activity in our sub-region, and I think that all countries are fully engaged in strengthening their capacity to fight terrorism and also in trying to strengthen their cooperation when taking the threat into account,” Amadou Kane, Senegal’s Army Chief of Staff
Much of West Africa is on alert at the moment, with hotels from Dakar to N’Djamena strengthening security following a pair of high-profile attacks which have exposed a growing Islamist militant threat to foreign travellers.
“By combining our efforts to a regional platform, a regional construct, we will layer our capabilities and capacities and get at denying them freedom of movement, denying them the ability to affect the populous negatively, denying them safe haven, denying them the ability to take sanctuary in one country and conduct attacks in the other,” Donald Bolduc, Africa Special Operations Command U.S. Brigadier-General
More than 1,700 military personnel are expected to take part in this year’s Flintlock exercises. Training will take place in the Senegalese towns of Podor, Bakel and Saint Louis, as well as in some sites in neighbouring Mauritania.
“On a tactical level, what we do is keep training, keep increasing our operating power, keep reminding ourselves of the presence of danger and trying to always imagine response patterns to the different situations that may arise,” Rodrigue Compaore, Burkina Faso Captain
Senegal’s capital Dakar, as well as Abidjan, the largest city in Cote D’Ivoire, are viewed as particularly attractive to Islamist militants due to their large Western expatriate populations and steady flow of tourists and business travellers.
