Senior Airman Bailey Malik transports cargo at Air Base 101, Niger, in November 2022. U.S. personnel and equipment were repositioned following a coup in Niger that has brought a halt to U.S. military operations in the country. (Luna Kim/U.S. Air Force)
More than two months after military forces deposed Niger’s democratically elected president, the Biden administration Tuesday designated their actions a coup, a move that will slash aid and cooperation with a country that had been a rare success story in a region battling Islamist militant insurgencies.
The State Department and top U.S. policymakers had been holding out hope they could find a way to restore President Mohamed Bazoum to power, pushing for his release from the presidential residence, where he has been under military guard since late July. The coup designation — months after other countries, including Niger’s former colonial ruler, France, started using that term — was a sign that the Biden administration has lost hope of winning a quick reversal.
The military junta is led by the former head of the presidential guard, Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani, and calls itself the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland. In August, Tchiani appointed a civilian prime minister, economist Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine, who has said he will lead consultations for a transitional government.
“The United States has concluded that a military coup d’etat has taken place in Niger,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. “Any resumption of U.S. assistance will require action by the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland to usher in democratic governance in a quick and credible timeframe.”
More than $500 million in U.S. aid is now on hold, Miller said.
Under U.S. law, a coup designation typically suspends all non-humanitarian aid, including military cooperation. Ahead of the coup, Niger had been a major staging ground for Pentagon operations battling Islamist insurgencies in the turbulent area south of the Sahara Desert, known as the Sahel. A drone base near the desert city of Agadez has been an especially important facility, and the Defense Department has been looking for ways to preserve its capability in the region.
About 1,100 U.S. troops were in Niger before the coup, a number that Pentagon officials have said has been slightly reduced since the July upheaval. The Pentagon plans to keep forces in place for now, and the U.S. Embassy is still operating in Niamey, the capital.
The coup designation will suspend the U.S. training of Nigerien forces, but the U.S. military continues to operate “force protection” operations from the Agadez base, a senior administration official said Tuesday, speaking like others on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
“We cannot continue business as usual,” the official said.
The Pentagon is still making long-term plans about its presence in Niger after consolidating forces in the country last month, the official said, and it has suspended other forms of counterterrorism operations from Niger.
France began a full withdrawal of its military Tuesday, after also pulling its ambassador at the demand of the military junta.
“We’re taking this action because over the last two months, we’ve exhausted all available avenues to preserve the constitutional order in Niger,” a second senior administration official said. “As time has passed, it’s become clear that the [military] officials that we’ve been dealing with did not want to abide by these constitutional guidelines.”
The Nigerien Embassy in Washington did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The administration’s hesitancy to declare the situation a coup had come under criticism from some civil society groups and other U.S. allies who said the delay muddied the waters about U.S. support for democracy. U.S. diplomats had countered that a coup designation could be counterproductive so long as any chance remained that Bazoum could be restored to power.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Monday with Bazoum, Miller said in a statement, a conversation that informed the deposed leader of the U.S. decision. Blinken “reiterated that a democratically elected, civilian-led government presents the best opportunity to ensure that Niger remains a strong partner in security and development in the region,” Miller said.
Bazoum’s future remains uncertain. One of the officials said Tuesday that it was possible that he would eventually be freed on the condition he leave Niger.
The State Department plans to leave in place the U.S. ambassador to Niamey, Kathleen FitzGibbon, who arrived in the country in mid-August, weeks after the coup. Her presence in the country gives the Biden administration a senior set of eyes and ears on the ground. But she has not yet presented her credentials to Nigerien leaders, a formal but important diplomatic process that has created an awkward dilemma about whether to formally acknowledge the military junta as Niger’s de facto rulers.
FitzGibbon has been holding “informal discussions” with junta leaders, one of the officials said, mostly focused on logistical issues and embassy operations.
Russia’s Wagner paramilitary contractor group had sought to capitalize on the opening provided by the coup, with senior Wagner leadership, including the group’s head, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, flying to the region in the weeks afterward to meet with the coup leaders and offer their services. Prigozhin later died in a midair explosion in Russia that the United States and others blamed on the Kremlin.
U.S. officials say that the group has not made major inroads in Niger since Bazoum was deposed.
