Controversy surrounding the United States military's new Africa Command has forced the Pentagon to put plans for establishing a headquarters in the continent on a slow track.

The United States Africa Command (Africom) should stay out of the African continent, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Wednesday. Africom was not really a new development, as the US has always had some kind of focus on the African continent, he told a media briefing in Cape Town.