Army failure to prepare training could impact North Africa efforts

The Pentagon failed to prepare Army units for the cultural difficulties of training local forces in Africa, leading to units reverting to their old tactics, according to a declassified inspector general’s report, a potential blow to efforts to train US-aligned forces in North Africa.

Failure to properly instruct advisers, which stemmed from poor oversight of American units deployed to the region and a lack of cultural preparation, could contribute to African countries being less ready to wage the terror fight, the findings indicate, as the Pentagon puts a top priority on containing potential spillover from the Libya conflict and the spread of Islamic State elements in North Africa.

“The RAF [regionally-aligned forces] has not been consistently prepared for its deployments to Africa, which has degraded the effectiveness of the RAF’s missions,” the report stated. “Security cooperation is a key element of USAFRICOM’s theater campaign plan … therefore, ineffective RAF training could disrupt or delay the execution of USAFRICOM’s strategy for the continent,” referring to the Pentagon’s top command in Africa.  

The regionally-aligned forces, known by the acronym RAF, is an Army-led effort to develop units that were tailored to the individual needs of theaters of war like Africa, dividing an assigned group over more than a dozen countries. US Africa Command has said the units perform “a significant share” of building up militaries on the continent.