{"id":400814,"date":"2020-09-18T08:54:50","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T05:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=400814"},"modified":"2020-09-18T08:54:50","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T05:54:50","slug":"u-s-africa-command-leaders-discuss-partnership-with-french-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/u-s-africa-command-leaders-discuss-partnership-with-french-military\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Africa Command leaders discuss partnership with French military"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paris<strong>(SONNA)<\/strong>-U.S. Africa Command leaders visited with French Chief of the Defense Staff, General Francois Lecointre, and other French senior officials to discuss continued U.S.-French cooperation in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrance is the United States\u2019 oldest ally, and a leader in the counterterrorism fight in Africa,\u201d said U.S. Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, U.S. Africa Command commander. \u201cWe share common threats, mutual concerns, and a commitment to fighting violent extremist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Topics discussed included U.S. and French postures and priorities on the continent, as well as possibilities for Franco-American cooperation beyond the current partnership to fight violent extremist organizations in West Africa.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Africa Command leaders recognized the successful French-led raid that killed one of one of al-Qaida\u2019s top commanders, Abdelmalek Droukdal, in June. U.S. intelligence collection helped facilitate the mission, which targeted the head of al-Qaida in the Magreb. The U.S. currently provides intelligence-sharing, logistics, aerial refueling, and training in West Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s going on in West Africa affects Africa, it affects Europe, and it affects America,\u201d said Townsend. \u201cContinued French leadership and increased support from their European neighbors is key to helping the Africans change the trajectory and prevent the spread of violence in West Africa.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. delegation expressed condolences on recent French losses in the Sahel, to include recent deaths of French soldiers from Operation Barkhane.<\/p>\n<p>The leaders also discussed global power competition in Africa and the growing activity of China and Russia on the continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paris(SONNA)-U.S. Africa Command leaders visited with French Chief of the Defense Staff, General Francois Lecointre, and other French senior officials to discuss continued U.S.-French cooperation in Africa. \u201cFrance is the United States\u2019 oldest ally, and a leader in the counterterrorism fight in Africa,\u201d said U.S. Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, U.S. Africa Command commander. \u201cWe share [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-400814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400816,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400814\/revisions\/400816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}