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.”

Read the full article here.

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