The Washington Post quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on how US drones are stifling the regional threat of al-Shabaab:
The Pentagon continues to fly drones over Somalia from another regional base, in Djibouti, making the loss of the Ethiopian base easier to take, said J. Peter Pham, an Africa analyst at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.
“There’s less of a strategic reason to have a base there, so it makes sense to pack up and move to where there’s more of a need,” he said. “There’s been a great deal of progress [against al-Shabab], or at least as much progress as one can get from a drone program.”