A joint training event included personnel from U.S. Special Operations and a personnel recovery team on location at Air Base 201, Agadez, Niger, Nov. 1, 2023. American forces are not yet being kicked out of Niger, a top Pentagon policymaker told House lawmakers Thursday, March 21, 2024, just days after the country’s military junta announced it was severing ties with the U.S. military. (Rose Gudex/U.S. Air Force)
American forces are not yet being kicked out of Niger, a top Pentagon policymaker told House lawmakers Thursday just days after the country’s military junta announced it was severing ties with the U.S. military.
Niger’s ruling military council, known as the CNSP, has “not asked or demanded that the United States military depart” the nation, Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs told the House Armed Services Committee Thursday. Her testimony came in the wake of the junta’s March 16 announcement it was canceling its Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, with the United States, which authorizes American troops to operate in the country.
“There is actually quite a mixed message. We are following up and seeking clarification,” Wallander said. “They have declared this SOFA … to be non-operational, [but] they have assured us that American military forces are protected, and they will take no action that would endanger them.”
The United States has about 1,000 U.S. military personnel in Niger, primarily to operate long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones from a base on the outskirts of the Sahara Desert city of Agadez, known as Air Base 201. The Pentagon spent more than $100 million in recent years to build up the drone base, which officials have said is critical to counterterrorism operations in the Sahel, where groups affiliated with the Islamic State and al-Qaida have grown in recent years.
Operations out of Air Base 201 had already been curtailed after the junta overthrew Niger’s democratically elected president in July 2023. U.S. policy restricts the Pentagon’s ability to cooperate directly with governments following a coup.
The military council’s announcement came in the wake of a meeting last week with top U.S. officials, including Wallander; Marine Gen. Michael Langley, the head of U.S. Africa Command; and Molly Phee, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs. A spokesman for the CNSP told the Associated Press that American troops “cannot stay on Nigerien soil any longer” after the meeting, which was described as contentious.
Pentagon officials this week said those talks were spurred, at least in part, by Niger’s growing ties with Russia and recent talks it has held with Iran.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday the United States was “troubled [with] the path that Niger is on” concerning those ties with Russia and Iran.
Langley, who testified Thursday alongside Wallander, said losing Air Base 201 would be a massive hit to his ability to monitor extremist groups in the region. He told lawmakers AFRICOM was in talks with other countries in the region about access for its drone program in the Sahel, but he declined to provide additional details about those negotiations.
Langley blamed a Russian disinformation campaign for Niger’s decision to break away from the U.S. military. He said the United States must do more to counter Russia’s propaganda machine across Africa, which has helped it expand influence on the continent.
The general said Russia has successfully exploited the recent rise in internet access in the Sahel to spread false information about western nations and democracy. He said that campaign is at least somewhat responsible for coups d’etat in recent years in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
AFRICOM, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department are working hard to counter Russian disinformation in the region, but Langley said more must be done because it has continued to influence regular African civilians as well as members of militaries.
“We are losing to the disinformation [campaign] from the Russian Federation, [and] we need to meet that with the truth,” Langley said Thursday. “We need to take that disinformation campaign — we need to hit it front and center, because Russia does have a passing game. Now, they have a ground game, as well.”
