US forces redeploy to West Africa after expulsion from Niger

The move comes as a response to the growing threat posed by militant groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS in the Sahel region.

The US has begun gradually relocating aircraft and special forces units to coastal West African countries, specifically Benin and Côte d’Ivoire, as part of a broader strategy to counter the rising influence of extremist factions in the area.

Negotiations are also underway for the potential return of American commandos to a previously occupied base in Chad.

This redeployment involves redistributing approximately 1,100 US troops who were forced to leave Niger after last year’s military coup that overthrew the pro-American civilian government.

The withdrawal also included the closure of three special forces sites and the removal of surveillance drones from a $110 million base established five years ago in Agadez, Niger.

Efforts are currently focused on restoring airstrips and setting up aircraft shelters in Benin, alongside training local forces in Côte d’Ivoire. The US is also in discussions with Chad to re-establish a presence there.

Despite these efforts, the US acknowledges that achieving its security objectives in the Sahel has become more challenging due to the loss of direct influence in the region.

Retired Major General Mark Hicks, former commander of US Special Forces in Africa, noted, “Losing Niger means we’ve lost our ability to have a direct impact on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts in the Sahel region,” referring to the vast desert strip south of the Sahara.

Extremist militants have been causing havoc across the central Sahel in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, attacking police and military forces, stirring local conflicts, and imposing their radical ideologies in occupied villages.

According to the Pentagon’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, this violence has claimed around 38,000 lives since 2017.

In August, approximately 200 people were killed in a single day in Burkina Faso.

The United Nations reported that suspected members of the al-Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) fired on civilians who were digging trenches to protect their town from attacks.

Over the past two years, armed groups from the Sahel have expanded their operations, launching experimental attacks on more stable coastal countries in the Gulf of Guinea region.

Omar Ansari, a journalist specializing in Sahel and Sahara affairs, attributes the worsening situation in the Sahel to the expulsion of US and French military forces from Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso after recent coups.

He believes this has emboldened terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda to expand in the region.

“America tracked these groups from its bases in Niger, and France did the same from its bases in Mali,” Ansari told Sky News Arabia.

“With the Sahel and Sahara regions now devoid of American and French military oversight, these extremist groups have multiplied autonomously, spreading in areas like Mali and Niger and extending into Nigeria through Boko Haram,” he added.

Ansari highlighted that the three countries—Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso—seem uninterested in combating terrorism, focusing instead on forming alliances with Russia.

Mali, for instance, has brought in Wagner Group mercenaries to combat Tuareg rebels, while Niger struggles to fend off escalating terrorist attacks after the closure of the major US base in Agadez.

Ansari explained that the decade-long US and French presence in the region failed to deliver decisive solutions in the fight against terrorism, despite extensive alliances and significant financial investments.

“These alliances faced substantial criticism on the ground for not achieving the expected results in eliminating extremist groups,” he said.

He further argued that the vast and challenging landscape of the Sahara poses a significant barrier to counterterrorism efforts, with extremist groups constantly re-emerging in different areas.

“Terrorism in the Sahel and Sahara is not ideologically structured in a way that allows for easy targeting and eradication.

It grows from poverty, necessity, and local conflicts, such as those over water and land, continually reshaping itself in various forms,” Ansari concluded.

He stressed that without genuine partnerships, particularly from the three coup-led countries, the US faces substantial challenges in controlling these groups