Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., is asking the Army to consider assigning a special brigade of about 500 soldiers to Africa to help advise and assist local forces there.
The proposal by Inhofe, a senior Senate Armed Services Committee member, would put one of the service’s newly created units designed for such assistance work under the control of U.S. Africa Command as it confronts a growing array of terror groups on the continent.
“As you know, AFRICOM does not have any assigned forces, but must compete for allocated forces within the Department of Defense’s global force management process,” Inhofe wrote in a letter Monday to Army Secretary Mark Esper.
The U.S. has about 6,000 personnel throughout Africa, including in Somalia, Niger and Mali where it is running military operations and working with local forces against groups linked with the Islamic State and al Qaeda.
The Army has sent one of its brigade combat teams to Africa in the past to provide assistance, but Inhofe said the deployment of a standard brigade was a drag on the unit’s readiness and kept it from other missions.
Last year, the service launched its new security force assistance brigades, which are specifically designed to work with local forces in allied countries and can be deployed quickly around the world.
“Assigning an SFAB would also reduce the requirements of allocating [an Army brigade combat team] and allowing it to focus on its training and maintaining the highest levels of readiness to meet other [combatant command] requirements or operational plans,” Inhofe wrote.
