{"id":54749,"date":"2023-09-29T10:03:22","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T10:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa"},"modified":"2023-09-29T10:28:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T10:28:41","slug":"us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa","title":{"rendered":"US Defense Secretary Completes First Tour Across Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin returns to the United States Thursday after wrapping up his first tour across the African continent as Pentagon chief.<\/p>\n<p>Austin started his tour in Djibouti, home to the primary U.S. military base on the African continent. There he met with Djiboutian leaders and Somalia\u2019s president, whose forces, Austin said, had made more progress against the al-Shabab terror group in the past year than the previous five years combined. Austin then turned to Kenya, visiting a base in Manda Bay near the Somali border where a terrorist attack in 2020 killed three Americans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMessage here being very clear that the war on terror still remains top on the agenda of the American government,\u201d said Vincent Kimosop, a policy analyst with Sovereign Insight. The American and Kenyan defense secretaries signed a five-year security agreement to support working together against their common terror threat. Austin also pledged $100 million in support of Kenyan security deployments, as Kenya prepares to lead a multinational peacekeeping mission to Haiti to combat gang violence. \u201cKenya is ready, Kenya is willing to lead that multinational peacekeeping force that will go to Haiti,\u201d said Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of Defense Aden Duale. Austin ended his trip on Africa\u2019s western coast, becoming the first U.S. defense secretary to ever visit Angola. Officials of both nations are hopeful that Angola can dump Russia as its arms supplier and opt for American-made weapons.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"366\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-54747 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2023\/09\/sm_1695970442.291943.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2023\/09\/sm_1695970442.291943.jpg 650w, https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2023\/09\/sm_1695970442.291943-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfrica deserves better than outsiders trying to tighten their grip on this continent,\u201d Austin said. \u201cAfrica deserves better than autocrats selling cheap guns, pushing mercenary forces like the Wagner Group or depriving grain from hungry people all around the world.\u201d Austin called out African military juntas without naming Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali or Niger. It was his most forceful rhetoric since the military removed Niger\u2019s elected president from power in July. \u201cWhen generals overturn the will of the people and put their own ambitions above the rule of law, security suffers &#8212; and democracy dies,\u201d Austin said. \u201cMilitaries exist to defend their people, not to defy them.<\/p>\n<p>And Africa needs militaries that serve their citizens and not the other way around.\u201d France decided this week to withdraw its military forces from Niger by the end of the year, and analysts say the U.S. could follow suit should the Nigerien military not return the elected government to power. \u201cNiger has become the key hub, the key center of counterterrorism operations for the U.S. and France in the region,\u201d said Bill Roggio of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. \u201cAnd if this is, if it\u2019s cut back, or if it\u2019s reduced, or if it\u2019s ended, there is no other assets in the region that the U.S. can use.\u201d The U.S. has so far kept its forces in Niger, but the Pentagon has declined to conduct counterterror operations with Niger\u2019s military.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\">Namibia<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Namibia. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin returns to the United States Thursday after wrapping up his first tour across the African continent as Pentagon chief. Austin started his tour in Djibouti, home to the primary U.S. military base on the African continent. There he met with Djiboutian leaders and Somalia\u2019s president, whose forces, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":54748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-54749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>US Defense Secretary Completes First Tour Across Africa - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin returns to the United States Thursday after wrapping up his first tour across the Afri ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US Defense Secretary Completes First Tour Across Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin returns to the United States Thursday after wrapping up his first tour across the Afri ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Namibia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-29T10:03:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-09-29T10:28:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2023\/09\/sm_1695970456.100162.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1023\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"575\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"US Defense Secretary Completes First Tour Across Africa\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-09-29T10:03:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-09-29T10:28:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa\"},\"wordCount\":504,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2023\/09\/sm_1695970456.100162.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"africa press\",\"Africa Press-Namibia\",\"namibia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/us-defense-secretary-completes-first-tour-across-africa\",\"name\":\"US Defense Secretary Completes First Tour Across Africa - 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