The army takeover in Niger has upended years of Western counterterrorism efforts in West Africa and now poses wrenching new challenges for the Biden administration’s battle towards Islamist militants on the continent.
American-led efforts to degrade terrorist networks around the globe have largely succeeded in longtime jihadist scorching spots like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Not so in Africa, particularly within the Sahel, the huge, semiarid area south of the Sahara the place teams linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are gaining floor at an alarming tempo.
Niger, an impoverished nation of 25 million individuals that’s almost twice the scale of Texas, has just lately been the exception to that development.
Terrorist assaults towards civilians there decreased by 49 % this 12 months, largely due to the two,600 French and American troops coaching and aiding Nigerien forces and a multipronged counterinsurgency technique by the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, analysts say. Niger has slowed, however not stopped, a wave of extremists pushing south to coastal states.
Now all that might be in jeopardy if a regional battle breaks out or the junta orders the Western forces, together with 1,100 American troops, to go away and three U.S. drone bases — together with one operated by the C.I.A. — to be shuttered.
Western-led army operations provide no silver bullet towards Islamist militancy within the Sahel, now the epicenter of world militancy. The previous decade of French-led operations within the area, involving 1000’s of troops, did not cease 1000’s of assaults.
Even so, a safety vacuum in Niger might embolden the militants to ramp up propaganda, improve recruitment of native and even overseas fighters, set up mini-states in distant areas, and plot assaults towards Western international locations. Removing the comparatively small American presence would make it tougher for army analysts to establish and shortly disrupt threats as they emerge, U.S. officers stated.
It might additionally open the door to Russian affect in Niger within the type of the Kremlin-backed Wagner non-public army firm, which already has a presence in neighboring Mali, U.S. officers say.
“The U.S. pulling out of Niger and closing its drone bases would be a devastating blow to Western counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel,” stated Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst on the Soufan Group, a safety consulting agency primarily based in New York.
The stakes within the battle are rising quick. Tens of 1000’s of individuals have died violently, and three.3 million have fled their properties, over the previous decade in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, which adjoin one another in West Africa. In two of them, the state of affairs is quickly worsening. The loss of life toll in Mali doubled final 12 months to about 5,000, whereas in Burkina Faso it rose 80 % to 4,000, in line with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. On Tuesday, 17 Nigerien troopers had been killed and 20 wounded in an ambush by armed insurgents in southwestern Niger.
The violence is spreading from these three landlocked nations towards wealthier ones alongside the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. Militants from Burkina Faso have carried out assaults in northern Togo and Benin.
Niger can be battling a separate Islamic State affiliate within the Lake Chad Basin, within the nation’s southeast.
“Niger has been this barrier against terrorist groups for coastal countries,” stated Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, who was Niger’s prime minister till the coup and stays one of many authorities officers acknowledged by the United States and most African nations. “With a weakened Niger, there’s little chance that this role will hold.”
The International Crisis Group has warned that the violence might additionally unfold into Ivory Coast, one of many area’s financial powerhouses.
“All the Gulf of Guinea countries are very worried,” stated Pauline Bax, deputy director of the Africa program on the International Crisis Group. Amid the furor over the coup in Niger, and the potential for Wagner to discover a perch there, the areas’ Islamist teams are possible celebrating an opportunity to develop their maintain, she stated.
Niger has been a centerpiece of American efforts to fight surging Islamist militancy within the Sahel area for a decade, and has taken on better significance for the reason that coup in Mali.
President Barack Obama ordered the primary 100 American troops to Niger in February 2013 to assist arrange unarmed surveillance drone operations in Niamey, the capital, to help a French-led operation combating Al Qaeda and affiliated fighters in Mali.
By 2018, the U.S. army presence had grown to 800 troops and the Pentagon was placing the ending touches on a $110 million drone base in Agadez, in northern Niger, a serious enlargement of American army firepower in Africa. The dangers of the rising mission had been laid naked in October 2017 when a terrorist ambush killed 4 American troopers, their interpreter and 4 Nigerien troopers.
Niger, nonetheless, remained the primary U.S. counterterrorism ally within the area beneath Mr. Bazoum, the nation’s former inside and overseas minister, who was elected in 2021 in Niger’s first peaceable switch of energy between two democratically elected presidents since independence.
American officers praised Mr. Bazoum’s technique, which used counterterrorism raids by American-trained commandos and a few degree of dialogue with native teams to handle their grievances. Fewer individuals had been killed in Niger within the first six months of this 12 months than within the first half of any 12 months since 2018, in line with the armed battle mission.
Since the rebellion on July 26, France and the European Union have suspended some assist to Niger. The U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, has stated that American safety ties, price about $500 million since 2012, had been additionally in danger if the putsch was not reversed. The United States has suspended coaching and drone flights, and restricted its troops to bases. France has additionally suspended all joint operations with Niger’s army.
With prospects for restoring Mr. Bazoum to energy showing dim, the Biden administration is weighing two predominant choices, officers say. It might formally declare a coup in Niger, because the administration did when army forces staged current takeovers in Mali and Burkina Faso, which might set off broader cuts in American assist, together with army help. Or Washington might cease wanting that designation, because it did with a army takeover in Chad, and search an association with the junta to proceed counterterrorism cooperation.
So far, the state of affairs has been comparatively peaceable and has not compelled the administration’s hand. But the specter of army intervention by the Economic Community of West African States, the regional bloc often known as ECOWAS, and dwindling hopes of a diplomatic decision current the Biden administration with powerful selections within the coming days.
U.S. options within the area are restricted, officers stated. The United States has performed coaching workouts in Mauritania, Ghana, Chad and elsewhere within the space. But none of these international locations are as centrally situated as Niger, or seem more likely to settle for such a big American army presence. “Niger is quite a critical partner to us in the region,” Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, stated on Tuesday.
The United States has primarily performed a supporting army position within the Sahel to France, a former colonial energy. But the junta has severed army ties with France, and the current occasions have highlighted the failure of France’s counterterrorism partnerships, observers say.
The army takeover is an particularly onerous blow for Western pursuits in Niger as a result of democracy seemed to be taking root within the nation regardless of a historical past of coups and tried coups since independence from France in 1960.
One small consolation for the Biden administration, because it makes an attempt to stability its rejection of coups with its want to keep up a safety presence in Niger, is that the most recent takeover appears to be pushed extra by private or factional variations relatively than any ideology.
The beautiful collapse of the Western-backed, democratic authorities in Niger has additionally revived a debate about whether or not the security-heavy U.S. strategy was flawed within the first place.
“We have an over-militarized approach to counterterrorism,” stated Alexander Noyes, a political scientist on the nonprofit RAND Corporation. “And that’s hurting us.”
American assist to international locations like Niger can be simpler if it prioritized help for good governance — stronger, extra democratic establishments with much less corruption — over the supply of deadly help, like drones and Special Forces, Mr. Noyes stated.
West African officers have warned that the Wagner mercenary group could transfer to fill the void if French troops depart, amid rumors {that a} Nigerien junta official met just lately with representatives from the paramilitary group in Mali, which has hosted about 1,500 Wagner operatives to battle off an Islamist insurgency.
Attacks towards civilians in Mali have surged for the reason that group’s arrival, as have the variety of Malian refugees in neighboring international locations.
U.S. officers say there isn’t a proof that Wagner helped instigate the army takeover in Niger, however the group is clearly making an attempt to use it. “Feel free to call us anytime,” Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, stated in an audio message geared toward Niger’s junta that was shared final week on Telegram channels related to the group.
“Niger was the last bastion of hope and security in the Sahel,” stated J. Marcus Hicks, a retired two-star Air Force normal who headed American Special Operations forces in Africa from 2017 to 2019. “The idea that we’d leave a vacuum for further malign Russian influence would be a real tragedy.”
Source: www.nytimes.com