U.S. Pledges $60 Million to Build New African Counterterrorism Force by Karen DeYoung – Washington Post
The Trump administration said Monday it would contribute an initial $60 million to help five nations in Africa’s Sahel region build a cross-border counterterrorism force but balked at a plan to provide multilateral support through the United Nations.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the U.N. Security Council that “we have reservations” about a proposal to expand an existing peacekeeping operation in the arid, sub-Saharan region of West Africa to provide logistical and other assistance to the force.
The peacekeeping group, called MINUSMA, “expends most of its resources protecting and supplying itself” amid increasing terrorist attacks, she said.
The Security Council meeting came amid growing international concern about the Sahel, where terrorism is on the rise, and local criminal and extremist groups have increasingly sought alliances with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State…