United States Special Forces troops training Nigerien soldiers in Agadez, Niger, in 2018.
Credit: The New York Times
Niger said it is revoking its military cooperation deal with the United States, ordering 1,000 American armed forces personnel to leave the country and throwing the United States’ strategy in the region into disarray.
The announcement by the West African nation’s military junta Saturday came after meetings last week with a delegation from Washington and the top US commander for Africa, Gen Michael E Langley. The move is in keeping with a recent pattern by countries in the Sahel region, an arid area south of the Sahara, of breaking ties with Western countries. Increasingly, they are partnering with Russia instead.
US officials also voiced alarm in the meetings about several other issues, including whether Niger’s military government was nearing a deal to give Iran access to Niger’s vast uranium reserves, a concern that was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
Niger’s rejection of military ties with the United States follows the withdrawal from Niger of troops from France, the former colonial power that, for the past decade, has led foreign counterterrorism efforts against jihadi groups in West Africa, but which has lately been perceived as a pariah in the region.
“The American presence in the territory of the Republic of Niger is illegal,” Niger’s military spokesperson, Col. Amadou Abdramane, said on national television. He added that the US military presence “violates all the constitutional and democratic rules, which would require the sovereign people — notably through its elected officials — to be consulted on the installation of a foreign army on its territory.”
Matthew Miller, the chief State Department spokesperson, said it was in touch with the ruling military junta, known as the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, or CNSP, about the move.
“We are aware of the statement from the CNSP in Niger, which follows frank discussions at senior levels in Niamey this week about our concerns with the CNSP’s trajectory,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.
Many of the Americans posted to Niger are stationed at US Air Base 201, a 6-year-old, $110 million installation in the country’s desert north. But since the military coup that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and installed the junta in July, the troops there have been inactive, with most of their drones grounded.
Because of the coup, the United States had to suspend security operations and development aid to Niger.
Bazoum, the country’s elected president, is still under arrest.