US forces in Europe focus on Africa terror havens

US forces stationed in Europe will increasingly shift their stance towards Africa and the former communist eastern bloc countries as they move to a more agile force countering post-Cold War threats such as terrorism, Nato’s top European commander says.

Marine General James Jones, Nato’s supreme commander and the head of the US European Command, or EUCOM, outlined changes that were transforming the 60-year US military presence on the continent during an interview with The Associated Press news agency.

“The difference between the EUCOM of the 20th century – which I regard as the Cold War century – and the EUCOM of the 21st century is the family of threats that it faces, ranging from terrorism to radical fundamentalism to narco-terrorism to illegal trafficking of all sorts,” Jones said at EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

European Command is not directly involved in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but plans to consolidate forces and shift them further south and east are in direct response to the threats developing from those conflicts.

Many of the changes, like consolidating different army headquarters under one roof in Wiesbaden, are simply a continuation of post-Cold War cuts that began in the 1990s following the collapse of Soviet threat.

But deeper changes are on the way, as the US looks less to large, fixed bases like those it has had for decades in Germany, to smaller, more bare-bones installations where troops could be moved quickly for training or to deal with a crisis.

Of the 112,000 military personnel currently stationed in Europe, only about 40% are expected to remain on five main bases, most of them in Germany.

The large air bases at Ramstein and Spangdahlem, as well the nearby support community of Kaiserslautern, will remain key hubs. The US Army will concentrate on existing posts in Wiesbaden and Grafenwoehr. EUCOM headquarters will remain in Stuttgart, while both the army and air force will remain in Aviano, Italy.

But increasingly the focus is shifting towards Africa, seen as a potential haven for Islamic extremists who have been ousted from places like Afghanistan.

“As radical fundamentalism gets gradually ousted from the Afghanistans and the Iraqs of the world, they have to find another place to go and our concern is that we don’t want to let Africa become the next such location,” Jones said.

One emphasis will be on helping local governments to secure their borders and training their militaries to identify and handle problems before they arise. Should a nation require US military back-up, pre-designated locations and existing agreements with various nations would allow the military to deploy swiftly.

Already five such agreements exist with countries in Africa, including the predominantly Muslim nations of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

In Europe, the focus is increasingly turning to the new Nato members of the former Warsaw Pact. A special Eastern Europe Task Force made up of troops would rotate through on a regular basis for training exercises, including some with local militaries.

Bases in Bulgaria and Romania, both of which hosted the US military during the Iraq war, have been earmarked to host forces, but would differ from those in Germany in that they would offer only a skeletal infrastructure and no families would accompany troops there on their tours of duty.

Before any of the plans can move forward, however, decisions must be made in Washington on which military bases there will be closed. The process is to begin next month.