Army
Since independence the army has gone through a large number of reorganisations. The army's heritage includes the prestigious Tirailleurs sénégalais. It currently consists of two divisions, the Operations Division and the Logistic Division. The IISS estimated in 2012 that the Army had a strength of 11,900 soldiers, three armoured battalions (French wikipedia listed 22nd, 24th, 25th (may have been at Bignona?) and 26th (Kolda?) Bataillon de reconnaissance et d'Appui) and six infantry battalion (French wikipedia lists 1st-6th). 3rd Battalion may have been at Kaolack with 4th at Tambacounda at one point.
Also reported is the 12th Battalion of the 2nd Military Zone at Saint Louis (Dakhar Bango), along with the fr:Prytanée militaire de Saint-Louis, a military (secondary school?).
Although the Senegalese air force is geared towards supporting it, the army may have previously maintained its own very small aviation branch, called the "Aviation Légère de l'Armée de Terre" (like the French army's equivalent), which may have counted up to five light helicopters and two SA330 Puma transport helicopters. The IISS Military Balance 2012 does not list any helicopters in army service.
Read more about this topic: Military Of Senegal
Famous quotes containing the word army:
“Man is the end of nature; nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he; no moss, no lichen is so easily born; and he takes along with him and puts out from himself the whole apparatus of society and condition extempore, as an army encamps in a desert, and where all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city in an hour, a government, a market, a place for feasting, for conversation, and for love.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)