America does not have an open war front in Africa but despite that, there are as many as 7,500 American Troops across the continent of Africa with over 4,000 in East Africa alone. According to Mint Press, there are over 3,500 ongoing military exercises in over 20 African countries currently, with military attaches sometimes outnumbering diplomats in some US embassies in some of the countries on the continent.

AFRICOM, the US army command in Africa which was formed 10 years ago currently operates drone surveillance activities to collect intelligence but little is known about the details of their activities.

It is unclear how much is known of AFRICOM’s activities even by the African governments hosting the troops. The US has a considerable foot print in Niger in particular where a large drone station is currently under construction in central Niger’s largest city of Agadez. Drone attacks being conducted in Africa today are in fact being performed extra-judiciously as congress has not authorized such attacks.

In Oct 2017, four US Troops were killed in Niger while another one was killed more recently in June 2018 in Somalia. There was little mention of this latest incident in the media.