The United States will pull more than 1,000 military personnel from Niger in an action that will force the Biden administration to reconsider its counter-terrorism strategy and amounts to a strategic success for Russia. The judgment comes a month after the West African country’s leading military junta revoked a security agreement with Washington that had permitted American forces on its soil to help fight jihadist terrorism.
US officials had expressed hopes that behind-the-scenes talks could recover the 12-year-old agreement, which was thrown into trouble on 15 March when a junta spokesperson publicly stated the continued US military presence in Niger “illegal”. But the US finally conceded defeat after meetings in Washington this week between Kurt Campbell, the deputy secretary of state, and Niger’s prime minister, Ali Lamine Zeine.
The withdrawal, anticipated to occur over the coming months, will indicate the closure of a US drone facility, known as Base 201, at Agadez in the Sahara that was extended in 2018 at $110m. The base, one of the major US drone facilities in Africa, has been employed in operations against jihadist groups in the Sahel area and was reportedly the launchpad for a string of deadly strikes against Islamic State fighters in Libya in 2019.
Niger’s ties with Washington have been tense since last July when the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, was unseated in a coup. He remains under house arrest, despite American urges for his release. Since the coup, Niger’s new leaders have sought closer ties with Russia, reflecting neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, where Russian military forces have launched a presence. Just days after the arrival of Russian military equipment and consultants in the country, thousands of protesters assembled in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, last week to demand the withdrawal of American forces.
According to Russian reports, the recently arrived personnel were part of Russia’s Africa Corps, a new paramilitary group established to return the Wagner Group, the mercenary outfit founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin had been a supporter of Vladimir Putin until he conducted a failed rebellion last year against the Russian president’s stewardship of the fighting in Ukraine; he was killed in a plane crash. He showed the Wagner Group’s services to the coup leaders after they captured power.
US military commanders have cautioned of the spread of Russian impact in the Sahel, a semi-arid area in the southern Sahara stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, and in other regions of Africa at American expense. American alarm increased when Lamine Zeine visited Moscow last December to examine military and economic ties, followed by a visit to Tehran the following month, where he satisfied Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president.
Senior state department and Pentagon officials stayed Niger earlier this year to support the military agreement intact. The visit was not a win, with Nigerien figures voicing anger over what they said were baseless American suspicions of negotiations to permit Iran access to Niger’s uranium resources, potentially enhancing Tehran’s nuclear programme. The withdrawal of American forces from Niger follows the expulsion of French troops after last summer’s coup.