Year after coup, U.S. finishes withdrawal from key military base in Niger
by Chris Benson
Washington DC (UPI) Aug 5, 2024

The United States announced Monday that it has completed the withdrawal of forces and assets from a key U.S.-built military base in Niger following last year's coup.

The move comes as threats of extremism rise and the African nation is seen to be inching closer diplomatically to Russia.

"The effective cooperation and communication between the U.S. and Nigerien armed forces ensured that this turnover was finished ahead of schedule and without complications," read a joint statement by the U.S. Department of Defense and Niger's Ministry of National Defense announcing the completion of the U.S. withdrawal of armed forces and assets from Air Base 201 in Agadez.

U.S. forces originally were slated to withdraw from Niger by mid-September.

Last month, U.S. troops withdrew from Air Base 101, a small drone base in Niger's capital, Niamey. The second $100 million U.S. drone facility, opened in 2018, had been instrumental in American and French initiatives to combat jihadists in West Africa for six years.

In April, the United States first revealed plans to withdraw more than 1,000 troops from Niger amid its deepening of ties to Russia after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell met with Niger's Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine to formalize the end of America's military presence in the west-central African country.

But the United States will maintain a diplomatic presence in Niger, with Zeine having expressed a desire to continue partnerships between the two countries. That meeting arrived a month after Niger's military junta revoked a 12-year-old security pact with Washington that allowed U.S. forces on Nigerian soil to combat Islamist terrorists in the region. The revocation of the pact took U.S. officials by surprise.

Monday's joint statement by Niger's defense ministry and the Pentagon noted the effort began May 19 following a "mutual establishment of withdrawal conditions," and that coordination between the two armed forces will continue over the coming weeks to ensure that the pullout ends as planned.

German troops are also set to leave Niger sometime this month. French forces were expelled shortly after the July 26 coup and U.S. troops in the country have been inactive since then.

Allied against al-Qaeda

Nigerien Air Base 201, a drone base near Agadez in central Niger, was improved to support "enhanced defense cooperation with the Nigerien armed forces and regional counterterrorism efforts," according to DOD, adding that U.S. troops in the last decade have trained Niger's military forces and supported partner-led counterterrorism missions against al-Qaeda and islamic extremism in the region.

The base was reportedly the launchpad for a series of deadly strikes against Islamic State fighters in Libya in 2019 as the Sahel region's share of global terrorist-related deaths rose from 1% in 2007 to 43% in 2022, according to the Global Terrorism Index.

But the absence of American and European forces will create a large security vacuum in the region with counterterrorism operations no longer in the area, observers say.

"Anything extractive is going to be outside of a major city, you're lacking security at this point," Aneliese Bernard, director of Strategic Stabilization Advisors, a risk consulting group based in Washington, D.C., and which has field teams based throughout the Sahel and coastal West Africa, told Africa News.

"Unless you have your own private security situation set up in a place as far away as outside of Agadez, where a lot of the uranium is, you're operating blindly out there."

Meanwhile, Niger's new leaders reportedly have reached out to strengthen bonds with Russia, following fellow junta-led nations Burkina Faso and Mali, where Russian already has established a military presence.

All three African nations have left Ecowas, the West African regional body which opposed their military takeovers. The three also quit the French-backed G5 Sahel force, claiming it undermined African sovereignty, and launched a new defense pact dubbed the Alliance of Sahel States.

Coup changed everything

Diplomatic relations between Niger and the United States have steadily deteriorated since last year's July 26 military coup lead by Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani. That incident pushed out democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum and installed the current junta in the sub-Saharan nation of more than 24 million citizens.

But a senior Pentagon official in July disputed the narrative that America is losing a contest for influence in Africa to adversaries such as Russia and China, nations less bound by concerns over human rights and democracy.

"This isn't a case where [Niger has] chosen Russia over us," the official told Defense News. "They are equally skeptical of external outside actors."

Days after the coup, the 15-country union of the Economic Community of West African States gave Niger's military coup leadership -- the so-called National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland -- an ultimatum: Either relinquish power back to civilian rule or potentially face military force.

After a meeting with a delegation of West African leaders who threatened military intervention, Tchiani, weeks later, went on state television to say that he's willing to return Niger to democracy after three years

In September, the Pentagon said U.S. troops stationed in Niger were being repositioned within the country as a "precautionary measure" as contractors and non-essential personnel fleed the country.

But Monday's joint statement indicated that both nations "recognize the sacrifices" made by both Niger's and American military forces.

Political turmoil in Africa

No less than eight attempted or successful military coups since 2020 have taken place in Africa, at least six of which resulted in a change of leadership, with seven in western Africa's Sahel region: Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon.

Last year in October, the U.S. officially declared that a military coup d'etat took place in Gabon -- about a month after Niger's -- nearly two months after the government of President Ali Bongo Ondimba was ousted on Aug. 30 by the military.

By August, the U.S. government partially suspended aid to Niger as military coup leaders in the country faced a deadline issued by West African states to relinquish power as a top U.S. official held "extremely frank and at times quite difficult" talks with Niger's coup leaders.

Officially designating a military act as a "coup" by the U.S. is not just semantics, but a legal term that restricts hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid on the line.

The United States supplies governments on the African continent with foreign aid aimed at stabilizing them to help facilitate partnerships. However, the U.S. suspends funding to a country if it deems an act as a "coup." And in Niger's case, it left beneficial partnerships in limbo.

"This isn't the outcome of our choosing," a U.S. official said . "But there's no reason to leave with sour grapes."

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