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US signs plan to increase military presence in Africa

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    Concerns about stability in region

  • Duration 4:24
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Eight minutes past the hour the US just signing an agreement with -- West African country of Niger.

To increase our military presence there.

This coming amid new concerns that al-Qaeda is gaining a stronger foothold the region.

John Bolton former US ambassador to UN and -- Fox's contributor with me now we're good morning.

To you you say we should be very concerned about this yeah I think we can see from what happened in Ben Ghazi on September the eleventh the French operations and -- the hostage taking in Algeria the chaos breaking out in Egypt.

North Africa is becoming unstable.

And this is something that that should be of great concern to us because the terrorist threat.

That we've seen in all these places is obviously growing and expanding and and then direct threat to -- then ultimately -- let me just show our viewers on the map here mr.

ambassador what we're talking about -- setting up on airstrips.

And the country and I I -- for the life of me I'd never thought this to be a possibility.

That we would be on television mr.

-- are talking about drones.

And the country of Niger.

Set -- here somewhere in the western and southwestern border here -- and then fly over northern Mali.

Which is where the Islamist rebels have taken refuge over the past year.

That is one issue in this region.

And then you talk about Algeria in the gas plant that was under siege ten days ago.

Algeria has its own issues then further -- in Libya after the fall of Qaddafi so many of these weapons reportedly they went into Algeria.

Many of them went down here -- -- and that's what we're contesting at the moment.

And furthermore I just make mention this -- come back to.

Well what's happening here in Egypt but again for I'd never thought we would be on television talk about US.

Military involvement operating out of Niger to contest islamists in -- But you say people have been talking about this for sometime is just a question whether we listen to them -- Right the Pentagon has been concerned about that the terrorist threat in North Africa for over a decade and day even before the new African command was created.

They were worried about.

About how to handle it now this this drone base that we're gonna set up -- share.

You can you can see from the map it's a centrally located country and and it's gonna give us a better insight certainly than we had for example on 9/11 -- Gaza's.

How does the administration feel about it's good to do they do they want to enter.

This phase -- would they rather not.

Well I'm not sure the president's particularly paying attention he has yet to break away from his line that the war on terror is -- very successfully indeed it's almost over when we can see.

Across North Africa the terrorists are growing -- in pressure.

From the French and Molly but dead but how long -- the French gonna stay there in the numbers that they're now they're just today there was an announcement that Iran.

Had had put weapons on a ship going in the Yemen -- arm.

The pro or Ronnie and terrorists there in Yemen where the state is disintegrating so everywhere you look across Syria Syria hollering and -- of Orleans -- -- you say what we need to be effective.

He is one singular anti terror strategy.

We're we have that in this ministry we do not we we have in fact a denial that there is a global war on terrorism now -- experts are gonna disagree about how to handle it that this is not a series of discrete incidents -- Algeria's here in serious here and -- here and none of them are connected.

There is a problem that's been growing for twenty years in the region we saw it on our first 9/11 we've seen it now just in the past couple months.

And we -- get serious about it again or we're gonna see what happened in Afghanistan.

Before the first and I look at Afghanistan is one of the -- countries in the world but when you look at this list Algeria Libya.

-- you Niger Mali some obvious to some of the poorest countries in the world still today.

In Egypt and -- reference it on the map over there.

The army chief is warning that and less that situation gets under control within seven days he's warning the entire country.

Could collapse.

-- the economy's already in the tank as a result of what's happened in the so called Arab Spring over the past two years and I think the only outcome that's foreseeable here if the government doesn't get its act together is the military will step in and take control.

This is an example of a radical Islam lies party.

They gained power in Egypt and it's a it's a pattern for what I'm afraid we're Tennessee across the entire -- challenges to come thank you jumble mr.

ambassador thank you thank you are right --

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