The U.S. military withdrawal from Niger, following the demand issued last March by the ruling authorities that U.S. troops leave the country, is proceeding on schedule. “The withdrawal is going well,” Gen. Kenneth Ekman, director of strategy for U.S. Africa Command, told reporters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, reported AFP. “It is ahead of schedule, and this is because of the excellent coordination that we have had with our Nigerien military counterparts,” said Ekman. “I expect that we will be complete with the withdrawal by early August, well ahead of the 15 September mutually agreed deadline.” The United States pulled out of a base in Niger’s capital, Niamey, in early July, but another 200 U.S. soldiers remain at the Agadez drone base in the north of the country.
However, the U.S. military is not happy about leaving Niger. “The consequences for regional security are very concerning,” Ekman said. “I’ve been here speaking to your military and government leaders—we share the same concerns about the violent extremist threat that is growing and increasingly threatening the countries around the Sahel.” He said the United States would continue to work with security forces in nearby Ivory Coast, but he denied media reports that the U.S. military was looking to build a base in Odienne, in the north of Ivory Coast.
Nick Turse, a long-time, harsh critic of U.S. military operations in Africa, reported in an article for The Intercept news organization yesterday, that, contrary to U.S. military statements, U.S. military operations have not reduced violence in the Sahel region; rather, they have had the opposite effect. He cited statistics supplied by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research institution, which show that terrorist violence in West Africa spiked while the counterterrorism “partnership” with Niger was in effect. Fatalities from attacks by militant Islamist groups in the Sahel, for example, have jumped more than 5,200% since 2016.
