The African Union confirmed Thursday that it expected to send a temporary deployment of 3,000 troops to West Africa's Sahel region to counter the threat from "terrorist groups". "I think this decision has been taken because as we see, as you can recognise yourself, the threat is expanding, it's becoming more complex," said Smail Chergui, head of the AU Peace and Security Commission, adding the decision was taken at an AU summit earlier this month. rcb/np/txw