U.S. To Evacuate Drone, Counter-terror Bases If Necessary Under Niger’s Junta, Says Commander
The United States says it is making precautionary plans to evacuate two key drone and counter-terror bases in Niger if that becomes necessary under the West African nation’s new junta.
The Air Force commander for Africa, Gen. James Hecker, who stated this on Friday, in Washington, while speaking with reporters, said planning includes looking for allied nations in the Saharan and Sahel regions, some of the world’s most active areas for al-Qaida- and Islamic State-allied extremist groups, “that we could maybe partner up with, and then move our assets there.”
Hecker explained that there had been no decision from the Joe Biden administration regarding whether the Niger military’s July 26 overthrow of the country’s democratically elected president would compel U.S. diplomats or security forces to leave the country, according to AP.
U.S. bases there have been vital counter-terror posts in an unstable region that is seeing an increasing number of coups as well as encroachment by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group.
The U.S. presence includes air bases in Niamey, the capital, and the remote city of Agadez on the southern edge of the Sahara.
If U.S. forces do leave, either following a decision by the Biden administration that it cannot work with the mutinous soldiers now leading the country or because the junta orders them out, “it obviously will have an effect” on U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism efforts, Hecker said.
“But of course what we hope for is that we have a peaceful diplomatic solution to this and we don’t have to” leave, he said.
The head of Niger’s presidential guard instigated the coup and continues to confine President Mohamed Bazoum and his family in the presidential palace.
U.S. diplomats say junta leaders have warned that Bazoum would be killed if Niger’s West African neighbors intervene militarily to restore Bazoum to power.
Bazoum took office in 2021, in the coup-prone country’s first peaceful and democratic transfer of power since independence from France in 1960.
The U.S. has yet to formally call what happened in Niger a coup. That designation could compel Washington to cut many of the military and security ties between the two countries.
Hecker said he believed it would be “weeks or much longer” before U.S. officials would announce any kind of decision to evacuate if it does come to that.
