US Special forces in Africa

StrategyPage summary.

May 22, 2017: Since 2007 the United States has created and expanded AFRICOM (Africa Command) to manage all the increasingly numerous American military operations in Africa. Since most of these operations involved special operations forces rather than conventional military forces AFRICOM released little detail on what was where. But in the last few years more of these details have emerged. As suspected most of the 40-50 AFRICOM “bases” detected are not bases in the traditional sense but merely temporary agreements to use existing civilian or military airbases or other facilities in African nations. These are usually countries where AFRICOM is providing assistance in dealing with Islamic terrorist activity or other security threats. 

this is similar to the work of the US in the Philippines: Often supplying information from sophisticated spying, and of course training of local forces.

There is a line, however, on who can be targeted: Going against the local NPA (communist insurgents) is a no no. But the terrorists, especially those with foreign ties, are okay.