BRUSSELS: The United States launches in Germany next month a new military command for Africa with small teams of key staff, but no troops, based on the continent, a senior US defence official said on Wednesday.

The Africa Command (Africom) will initially work from Stuttgart, and have a year to prepare six locations in, as yet, unidentified African countries, said US Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Ryan Henry.

“The command will stand up at the beginning of October,” he told reporters in Brussels during a trip for talks with European Union and Nato officials. “There will be no new bases and no new forces associated with this command,” he underlined. “This represents no change in our policy towards Africa.”

The move comes amid heightened US military activities in the region, much aimed at denying new havens to militant groups aligned with Al Qaeda.

Africom would have the main tasks of providing security assistance to African countries, as well as helping them to build “military professionalism”. But it could also conduct “military operations to deter aggression and respond to crises”, according to its mission statement, using US troops based elsewhere.

However Henry insisted: “We are not looking for externally imposed solutions to the security problems in Africa. The Africans are going to have to be the ones that are in the lead.” No formal talks have begun with any country on hosting US staff but US officials confirmed that Liberia has offered to take part while others “have communicated privately their specific interest”.

Libya has already rejected the Africom plan outright.

Some 1,500 US troops are already in Djibouti, neighbouring Ethiopia and Somalia, on “anti-terror” operations in the Horn of Africa. The Pentagon’s coverage of Africa is shared among three regional commands.

Central Command (Centcom), based in Tampa, Florida, is in charge of US military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as Egypt, Sudan and the Horn of Africa.

The European Command (Eucom), also in Stuttgart, is responsible for the rest of Africa. Pacific Command (PACOM) in Hawaii covers the island of Madagascar.

“Rather than three different commanders who have Africa as a third or fourth priority, there will be one commander that has it as a top priority,” Henry said.—AFP