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Official: AfriCom will need Air Force aircraft

The newly formed U.S. Africa Command will be an air-centric theater and will require some permanently assigned U.S. Air Force aircraft, a senior Air Force official said Monday.

And while no decision has been made about where the new combatant command will be headquartered, the official said Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is emerging as a leading contender.

AfriCom stood up Oct. 1, and the official said it is still too early in the planning process to know how many aircraft might be required for the command’s air component. But the official said the command will likely need several C-17s, several C-130s and some amount of tanker support. It probably will not require fighters, he said.

But it appears that those aircraft will not be in place when the command becomes fully operational in September 2008.

The Air Force team charged with planning the structure of AfriCom’s air component, the reactivated 17th Air Force, submitted its requirements proposal to Air Force Headquarters on Nov. 27. The proposal only included small transport aircraft for the initial standup, officials said, though other aircraft could be brought in for contingencies.

The official also said Addis Ababa is looking increasingly likely as a permanent headquarters for the command, which is currently being run out of Stuttgart, Germany.

Addis Ababa is already home to the African Union, the official said, and is one of the more sophisticated cities on the continent. Ethiopia is also a close U.S. ally in the region.

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Staff writer Seamus O’Connor contributed to this report.