The 12 countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have reportedly decided to create a new force to fight terrorists operating in the region.<\/p>\n
Sources told the AFP news agency that military chiefs made the decision during a meeting in Freetown over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Discussions focused on the rising terrorist threat, the expansion of transnational organised crime, and the persistent challenges related to maritime insecurity.<\/p>\n
The initial goal is to have around 2,000 troops ready to fight “terrorism and insecurity” across West Africa.<\/p>\n
Sources said they will remain stationed in their own countries, with Sierra Leone serving as a logistical base for the group.<\/p>\n
Officials are reportedly still thrashing out the details of how to finance the force and ECOWAS has not yet issued an official statement.<\/p>\n
The Sahel, which cuts across Africa between the Sahara and sub-Saharan Africa, has long been plagued by terrorist insurgencies led by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.<\/p>\n
They have been particularly active in three former French colonies — Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger — that quit the ECOWAS in recent years following military coups.<\/p>\n
The three countries have formed their own alliance, but a West African chief of staff says they will be encouraged to cooperate with the new force.<\/p>\n
The three countries “are in a part of the Sahel that is the epicentre of the fight against the terrorists. They must be included,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 12 countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have reportedly decided to create a new force to fight terrorists operating in the region. Sources told the AFP news agency that military chiefs made the decision during a meeting in Freetown over the weekend. Discussions focused on the rising terrorist threat, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":13,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AFP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,1129,27],"tags":[311],"class_list":["post-20084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-economic-community-of-west-african-states-ecowas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20085,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20084\/revisions\/20085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}