U.S. Africa Command

As the US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was recently visiting American forces in Djibouti, the Washington Post was reporting how the Pentagon has been spearheading a seemingly dicey initiative to pressure Washington into recognizing the secessionist northwestern region of Somalia known as “Somaliland” as an independent state.

Mary Yates is deputy to the commander of the U.S. military's new Africa Command. But she has no stars on her shoulder and does not wear a uniform. Yates is a career diplomat who has served as U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Burundi. Her appointment symbolizes the military's effort to make its newest command very different from the others and a possible model for the future. The command, responsible for U.S. military operations in Africa, will include more diplomats, aid experts and other civilians than headquarters for other parts of the world. And they will be integral to the organization, not just advisers. The U.S. government bills that change as an effort to make sure all its branches work together.

The U.S. efforts to seek a home for the Africa Command (AFRICOM) have suffered one more blow as the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) stated strong opposition Tuesday to any foreign military establishments on the soil of African countries. The UMA, founded in 1989 by Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Moroccoand Tunisia, said through its consultative committee that such foreign establishments would not bring any benefit to the UMA or the African Union countries.

BERLIN (AP) -- The U.S military's contentious new command covering Africa began operating on Monday from a base in Germany, and will be gradually brought to full capacity over the next year, a military spokesman said. But several African leaders have expressed doubt about the command's necessity, saying they want to avoid foreign troops on their soil.

Much of the work for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the U.S. military’s newest geographic command, likely will be done by five teams, each deployed to and designed for a specific region of the continent. The plans for these “regional integration teams” are still being laid, but Pentagon officials want a “split-based, tailored presence” there, not a one-size-fits-all approach that might produce dividends in one region but chaos in another, according to Department of Defense documents prepared in mid-September.