Hillary Clinton questioned by Congress on Algeria and Mali
Secretary of state tells Senate committee that al-Qaida in the region threatens African allies and poses direct threat to the US.
Hillary Clinton has called for increased US military and political intervention in north Africa, and warned of a long, difficult but necessary struggle against a "spreading jihadist threat" in the region.
The US secretary of state singled out the French-led intervention against armed Islamists in Mali as the most urgent crisis, but said that al-Qaida in the region, newly armed and invigorated by the fallout of the Arab revolutions, also threatens important allies such as oil-rich Nigeria, as well as the fledgling government in Libya.
Clinton, who is expected to leave office shortly, told the Senate foreign relations committee that jihadists in north Africa pose a direct threat to the US, and called for an increased role for the American military command for Africa, known as Africom, as well as providing the resources for governments in the region to defend themselves.
"We now face a spreading jihadist threat. We have driven a lot of the AQ [al-Qaida] operatives out of Afghanistan, Pakistan. We have killed a lot of them, including, of course, Bin Laden. But we have to recognise that this is a global movement," she said.
