Tag: africa

Pentagon to ‘downgrade’ US military command from Eurasia to Africa, consolidate ‘AMERICOM’: Report

The Pentagon is working on a comprehensive restructuring of US military command – including a “downgrade” of major headquarters and a “shift in the balance of power” among prominent generals, the Washington Post reported on 16 December. 

Sources familiar with the matter told the US outlet that the “major consolidation” is being sought by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. 

The ambitious plan is described as part of Hegseth’s vow to “break the status quo” and cut the number of four-star army generals.

“It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of US Central Command, US European Command, and US Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as US International Command,” the sources said to the Washington Post.

“The plan also calls for realigning US Southern Command and US Northern Command, which oversee military operations throughout the Western Hemisphere, under a new headquarters to be known as US Americas Command, or Americom,” the report adds. 

“Pentagon officials also discussed creating a US Arctic Command that would report to Americom, but that idea appears to have been abandoned.”

This would reduce the number of major army headquarters from 11 to eight, while reducing the number of four-star generals and admirals who report to Hegseth.

According to the sources, the plan aligns with President Donald Trump’s national security strategy, published on 5 December.

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Walz Jumps Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire As Federal Probe of Massive Minnesota Welfare Scam Widens

Minnesota leftist governor and miserably failed 2024 Democrat vice-presidential nominee (laughingstock) Tim Walz. What can be said about the delusional guy that hasn’t already been said?

Sure, Walz is undeniably an out-of-touch-with-reality oddball with a propensity to say and do incredibly idiotic things, apparently without as much as a hint of his total lack of self-awareness, but the governor is so much more — and I don’t mean that as a compliment. 

While Walz possesses a bit of the iconic fumbling of the lovable deputy of fictional Mayberry, Barney Fife, Barney had not only a heart, but also a notable sense of decency about him, which the embattled governor likely doesn’t even comprehend, much less embody. 

Our latest Walz tale began on Tuesday in Seattle, when the self-anointed manly-man tried to go all Barney as a featured speaker at a fundraiser for Washington Democrat Gov. Bob Ferguson’s reelection campaign. 

While speaking about the elephant in the room — Minnesota’s massive welfare fraud scheme, and the up-to-their-eyeballs complicity of Somali immigrants — Walz predictably trotted out a bit of his “he-man” schtick, telling attendees that Somalis were being “demonized,” and that he plans to import even more Somalis into his state.

Geez, what could possibly go wrong?

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Tim Walz Vows to Bring More Somalis to Minnesota, Despite Growing Fraud Scandal Reaching Into the Billions

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is vowing to bring more Somali immigrants to his state, despite the massive fraud scandal that has unfolded in the Minnesota Somali community on his watch.

In a just world, Walz would have already resigned from his role as governor over this. Instead, he is defiantly showing the country that he just doesn’t care. And why should he? It’s not like the media is going to hold him accountable. He’s a Democrat.

Even so, it takes some serious nerve for him to act like this.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Tim Walz Pledges To ‘Welcome More’ Somalis Into Minnesota as Evidence of Staggering Fraud Scheme Makes National Headlines

Minnesota governor Tim Walz (D.) is pledging to bring more Somalis to his state as he grapples with the fallout from a massive Somali welfare fraud scheme that occurred under his watch.

“We are going to defend our neighbors,” Walz said at a Tuesday fundraiser, according to the Center Square. “Instead of demonizing our Somali community, we’re going to do more to welcome more in.”

The remarks come as Walz faces criticism for his administration’s failure to prevent a sprawling welfare fraud scheme orchestrated by Somalis living in Minnesota. Much of the fraud, which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars, occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic but has gained national attention only in recent weeks.

Walz refused to take responsibility for failing to stop the fraud scheme, telling NBC News’s Kristen Welker, “I take responsibility for putting people in jail.”

It’s important to note that the money that was stolen, was earmarked for children.

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Minnesota: ‘Nearly Every’ Somali Household with Children Is on Welfare

More than 8-in-10 households headed by Somali refugees in the state of Minnesota are on one or more forms of American taxpayer-funded welfare, new data published by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals.

The data, based on 10 years of data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), shows drastic disparities between native-born American households and Somali-born households in Minnesota, where nearly 80,000 residents have Somali ancestry compared to zero who had Somali ancestry in 1990.

In particular, the data shows that 81 percent of Minnesota households headed by Somali refugees are on one or more forms of welfare, including 27 percent who are on cash welfare, 54 percent who are on food stamps, and 73 percent who are on Medicaid.

Compare this massive welfare use to native-born Americans residing in Minnesota, only 21 percent of whom are on one or more forms of welfare, including just 6 percent who are on cash welfare, 7 percent who are on food stamps, and 18 percent who are on Medicaid.

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Left-Wing Vermont School District Raises Somali Flag Next to American Flag

A woke Vermont school district hoisted a Somali flag on Friday, as Democrats around the country defend Somali migrants amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown and a growing fraud scandal in Minnesota’s Somali community. 

“We are raising the Somali flag this week in honor of our Somali youth and families in Winooski and Vermont,” the Winooski School District posted to Facebook. “On Monday, we will be gathering to celebrate together and to learn more about our civil rights.”

The Winooski School District told OutKick the Somali flag was raised on one of its three flagpoles. The American flag is on the highest mast, in accordance with the United States Flag Code, and the Vermont state flag is on the second mast, the district said. The Somali flag was raised on the third mast, which the district said is “for affinity groups.”

The school district’s website was unavailable as of 2:00 p.m. on Monday. The district instead put up a temporary page saying its website is “currently removed from public view” as the district works to “address and mitigate an unprecedented volume of illegitimate traffic targeting our services.”

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Nigeria Investigates Organ-Harvesting Ring After Discovering Mutilated Corpses

Police in the southeastern Nigerian state of Imo are investigating a possible organ-harvesting ring after finding a hideous trove of mutilated corpses at a hotel.

The Imo horror is an especially grim example of Nigeria’s kidnapping epidemic, in which every sort of malevolent group — from Islamic State jihadis to huge bandit gangs and small groups of petty criminals — kidnaps vulnerable people. Sometimes the kidnappers hold their victims for ransom and murder them if the ransom is not paid. In other cases, the abductors are looking for child brides.

In Imo, it appears a kidnapping ring was carving up its victims to harvest their organs. State police said on Monday that during their “ongoing war against kidnapping,” they tracked an unnamed suspect to an illegal mortuary and nearby hotel that he owned.

“At the mortuary, decomposed and mutilated dead bodies were discovered in unhygienic conditions, raising suspicions of illegal organ-harvesting activities,” said a police spokesman.

According to the UK Daily Mail, over a hundred bodies were found at the “organ-harvesting slaughterhouse.” Both the hotel and mortuary were sealed by police while forensic teams examined the scene.

Nigeria’s Punch newspaper reported on Monday that the organ-harvesting investigation was related to the “intensive manhunt for armed men who attacked motorists and abducted passengers” in a nearby community.

Police responded in force after a group of armed men ambushed two vehicles, fatally shooting the driver of one and kidnapping the passengers in the other. Security teams were said to be “bush-combing, search-and-rescue, and suspect-tracking within the Amala forest axis and surrounding communities.”

The implication behind linking these two stories is that the carjacking gang has been kidnapping travelers and taking them to the “illegal mortuary” for their organs to be harvested. The police have yet to identify any of the perpetrators involved in the vehicle ambush, but they named the suspect wanted in connection with the mortuary as Stanley Morocco Oparaugo.

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AFRICOM Announces Seven More Airstrikes in Somalia as Trump Continues Record-Shattering Bombing Campaign

US Africa Command has announced in recent days that its forces have launched at least seven more airstrikes in Somalia as the Trump administration continues its record-breaking bombing campaign in the country, which receives virtually no media coverage in the United States.

AFRICOM said in a press release that it launched airstrikes in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region on November 26, November 27, and November 28, which it said targeted the ISIS affiliate in a remote mountain region about 37 miles to the southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bossaso.

The command said in another press release that it launched more airstrikes against ISIS in the same area of Puntland on December 1, December 2, and December 3. A separate airstrike that was launched on December 3 targeted al-Shabaab near the village of Kobon in the southern Jubaland region, according to a third AFRICOM press release.

The six days of US airstrikes in Puntland came after the commander of AFRICOM, Gen. Dagvin Anderson, visited the region and called for the war against the ISIS fighters hiding out in caves to be “intensified.” The US has been backing local Puntland forces since the region is not under the control of the Mogadishu-based Federal Government.

The command didn’t specify how many airstrikes it launched, but counting each day as one bombing brings the total number of US airstrikes in Somalia this year to 109, an unprecedented number. President Trump has shattered the previous record for annual US airstrikes in Somalia, which he set at 63 during his first term in 2019.

According to numbers from New America, which tracks the US air war in Somalia, President Biden launched a total of 51 airstrikes in Somalia throughout his entire four years in office, and President Obama launched 48 over eight years. President Trump launched a total of 219 during his first term.

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Somalia’s Average IQ Score Meets the U.S. Standard for Intellectual Disability

Minnesota’s Somali community has been treated for years as a political talking point rather than a population that deserves honest evaluation. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz insists the community poses no financial or public-safety burden. Democrats frame all criticism as racism. 

But the numbers tell a different story—one that Minnesotans have been asked to ignore even as the state confronted one of the largest welfare-fraud schemes in U.S. history.

Federal prosecutors uncovered a $250–$300 million network of falsified child-nutrition and Medicaid claims, much of it operating through organizations rooted in Somali enclaves. 

The total fraud is now estimated by some to exceed $1 billion. The scandal reflects deeper structural problems tied to human-capital realities that Democrats refuse to acknowledge.

Minnesota has a population of about 5.7 million, including approximately 107,000 Somali-born or Somali-American residents—roughly 1.5% of the state. 

Yet according to state data, about 58% of Somali Minnesotans live in poverty, or roughly 62,000 people, compared with 530,000 Minnesotans overall. That means the Somali community represents nearly 12% of the state’s total poverty population despite making up less than 2% of its residents.

This imbalance translates into real fiscal consequences. 

Minnesota spends billions annually on welfare-related programs. Using per-capita calculations, the Somali poverty footprint represents an estimated $2.8 billion in yearly public-assistance obligations. 

That burden falls on taxpayers—many of whom were never told the scale of the dependency they were financing.

State leaders also insist Somali Minnesotans do not disproportionately contribute to crime. Governor Walz has repeatedly made that claim without supplying data to support it.

The federal record tells a different story. 

Across the United States, Black migrants make up 5.4% of immigrants, yet account for 20.3% of immigrants facing removal because of criminal convictions. That category consists mostly of East Africans, including Somali nationals.

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ICE “Strike Teams” Deployed To Minneapolis After Bombshell Somali Welfare-Fraud Report Linked To Overseas Terror

Investigative journalist Christopher Rufo, whose City Journal expose revealed how Minnesota’s Somali community stole billions in taxpayer funds, with money ultimately flowing to a foreign terrorist network, notes that just weeks after his bombshell report, ICE has now mobilized in Minneapolis.

“How it started   …   How it’s going,” Rufo wrote on X on Tuesday evening. 

Rufo cited a report from the New York Times that said the Trump administration launched a massive ICE enforcement operation in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area, set to target hundreds of illegal alien Somalis. 

According to an official with knowledge of the deportation operation and documents obtained by the NYT, about 100 federal agents have been deployed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul region as part of a new “strike team” to deport Somali illegal aliens who are a net drain on public resources.

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Pentagon Seeks To Explain A Little-Known, Forgotten ‘Forever War’

The US Department of War insisted on Tuesday that it’s not waging a “forever war” in Somalia despite the fact that the Trump administration has shattered the record for annual airstrikes in the country.

Liam Cosgrove, a reporter for ZeroHedge, noted during a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday that the US has launched 101 airstrikes (now 102) in Somalia and that US troops reportedly conducted a recent ground raid, and asked why the US military is still in the country.

“I can assure you this is an America First Department of War and president, so we aren’t conducting forever wars in Somalia, we aren’t seeking regime change, and we’re not nation building,” Pentagon spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson said in reply.

The Trump administration has dramatically escalated the US war in Somalia, launching more than 10 times the number of airstrikes that the US conducted in 2024, and more than the combined total of airstrikes launched during the 12 years that Presidents Obama and Biden were in office. Despite the unprecedented scale of US strikes, Kingsley described the campaign as “narrowly scoped.”

She told Cosgrove, “I will say that this Department’s narrowly scoped, intelligence-driven, counterintelligence operations in places like Somalia, alongside our partners, allow us to protect the American homeland from terrorist threats and to protect our interests.”

US airstrikes this year have targeted a small ISIS affiliate based in caves in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region and al-Shabaab in southern and central Somalia.

The US has been fighting al-Shabaab since it backed an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, which ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Muslim groups that briefly held power in Mogadishu after taking the capital from CIA-backed warlords.

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