America\u2019s Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in spectacular fashion, from Iraq in 2014 to Afghanistan in 2021. The greatest failure of its \u201cForever Wars,\u201d however, may not be in the Middle East, but in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated,\u201d President George W. Bush told the American people<\/a> in the immediate wake of the 9\/11 attacks, noting specifically that such militants had designs on \u201cvast regions\u201d of Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To shore up that front, the US began a decades-long effort to provide copious amounts of security assistance, train many thousands of African military officers, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos<\/a> on all manner of missions, create proxy forces<\/a>, launch drone strikes<\/a>, and even engage in direct ground combat<\/a> with militants in Africa. Most Americans, including members of Congress<\/a>, are unaware of the extent of these operations. As a result, few realize how dramatically America\u2019s shadow war there has failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The raw numbers alone speak to the depths of the disaster. As the United States was beginning its Forever Wars in 2002 and 2003, the State Department counted a total of just\u00a0nine terrorist attacks<\/a>\u00a0in Africa. This year, militant Islamist groups on that continent have, according to the Pentagon, already conducted 6,756 attacks. In other words, since the United States ramped up its counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75,000%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq opened to military successes in 2001<\/a> and 2003<\/a> that quickly devolved into sputtering occupations. In both countries, Washington\u2019s plans hinged on its ability to create national armies that could assist and eventually take over the fight against enemy forces. Both US-created militaries would, in the end, crumble. In Afghanistan, a two-decade-long war ended in 2021 with the rout of an American-built, -funded, -trained, and -armed military as the Taliban recaptured the country. In Iraq, the Islamic State nearly triumphed over a US-created Iraqi army<\/a> in 2014, forcing Washington to reenter the conflict. US troops remain embattled<\/a> in Iraq and neighboring Syria to this very day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Africa, the US launched a parallel campaign in the early 2000s, supporting and training African troops from Mali in the west to Somalia in the east and creating proxy forces<\/a> that would fight alongside American commandos. To carry out its missions, the US military set up a network of outposts<\/a> across the northern tier of the continent, including significant drone bases \u2013 from Camp Lemonnier<\/a> and its satellite outpost Chabelley Airfield<\/a> in the sun-bleached nation of Djibouti to Air Base 201<\/a> in Agadez, Niger \u2014 and tiny facilities with small contingents of American special operations troops in nations ranging from Libya and Niger to the Central African Republic and South Sudan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For almost a decade, Washington\u2019s war in Africa stayed largely under wraps. Then came a decision that sent Libya and the vast Sahel region into a tailspin from which they have never recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe came, we saw, he died,\u201d Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joked<\/a> after a US-led NATO air campaign helped overthrow Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the longtime Libyan dictator, in 2011. President Barack Obama hailed the intervention as a success, but Libya slipped into near-failed-state status. Obama would later admit that \u201cfailing to plan for the day after\u201d Qaddafi\u2019s defeat was the \u201cworst mistake<\/a>\u201d of his presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Libyan leader fell, Tuareg fighters in his service looted his regime\u2019s weapons caches, returned to their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that nation. Anger in Mali\u2019s armed forces over the government\u2019s ineffective response resulted in a 2012 military coup. It was led by Amadou Sanogo, an officer who learned English in Texas and underwent infantry-officer basic training in Georgia, military-intelligence instruction in Arizona, and was mentored by U.S. Marines in Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having overthrown Mali\u2019s democratic government, Sanogo and his junta proved hapless in battling terrorists. With the country in turmoil, those Tuareg fighters declared an independent state, only to be muscled aside by heavily armed Islamists who instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, causing a humanitarian crisis. A joint Franco-American-African mission prevented Mali\u2019s complete collapse but pushed the militants into areas near the borders of both Burkina Faso and Niger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then, those nations of the West African Sahel have been plagued by terrorist groups that have evolved, splintered, and reconstituted themselves. Under the black banners of jihadist militancy, men on motorcycles \u2014 two to a bike, wearing sunglasses and turbans, and armed with Kalashnikovs \u2014 regularly roar into villages to impose zakat (an Islamic tax); steal animals; and terrorize, assault, and kill civilians. Such relentless attacks have destabilized Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and are now affecting their southern neighbors along the Gulf of Guinea. Violence in Togo and Benin has, for example, jumped 633% and 718% over the last year, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US-trained militaries in the region have been unable to stop the onslaught and civilians have suffered horrifically. During 2002 and 2003, terrorists caused just 23 casualties in Africa. This year, according to the Pentagon, terrorist attacks in the Sahel region alone have resulted in 9,818 deaths \u2014 a 42,500% increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n