A new blow to the Western presence in Niger. Within a few months, the Stars and Stripes flag will be lowered from the Agadez military base. And so, after the withdrawal of French troops, only a few hundred European soldiers will remain in the boiling Sahel country. In particular, the 250 Italian soldiers: the last Western garrison in an area of the world where the Eastern wind blows strongly. The Russian one in particular, which pushes from Libya, but also the Chinese and Iranian ones.
The withdrawal of US troops from Niger will begin in the next few days, government sources told the New York Times. About a thousand men who, together with the Reaper drones, will have to abandon the Sahel after months of doubts, threats and exhausting negotiations. The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to prevent troops from leaving the largest US outpost in the region. But the situation has appeared critical especially in the last two months.
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BREAKTHROUGH
On March 12, a first US delegation composed of two senior officials and the commander of Africom, Michael Langley, arrived in Niamey to try to clarify the situation with the military in power. But those two days of meetings had had no positive effect. The distances between the parties had already appeared unbridgeable, amid accusations of links with Moscow and backroom deals to cede uranium to Iran (of which Niger is rich). To the point that three days after the departure of the US delegates, Niger announced the definitive “eviction order” in a speech on national TV given by Colonel Amadou Abdramane, spokesman for the junta. For the military, the US presence in the country was “illegal” and against “all constitutional and democratic rules”. And in the meantime, the news came that the tombstone of any cooperation with Washington appeared. The first hundred Russian military advisors arrived in Niger, ready to train Niger troops in the use of an unspecified air defense system (perhaps the Pantsir 2, experts say). The last wake-up call before last Saturday’s demonstration, when hundreds of people called for the withdrawal of US forces. The procession had the same backdrop as the protests that have animated the country since the coup that deposed president Mohamed Bazoum. People take to the streets, cheer the new government, wave the country’s flags. And along with the national ones, they also wave Russian flags and effigies with President Vladimir Putin. A message that never left room for doubt. But it was essential for the United States to avoid appearing to withdraw immediately. And above all on the recommendation of a military junta that deposed one of their allies.
Pentagon operations in Agadez have practically stopped since the day of the coup. But that hundred million dollar base has been one of the pillars of the US strategy in Africa for years. From where Washington controls not only Niger, but all of West Africa. An eye on local militias, on the terrorist movements of Al Qaeda and the self-styled Islamic State. But above all, a last outpost in a Sahel where the West is starting to retreat further and further to the detriment of its strategic rivals. First with France and now with the United States. Still remaining in the boiling African country, a crossroads of migratory routes, obscure trafficking, and interests of the great powers, are Italy and its partners of the European Union. That between training local forces and support for the population, they try not to abandon Niger and the entire region to a destiny that appears increasingly uncertain and certainly distant from the West. In the last bilateral meeting in Capri between Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the head of American diplomacy reiterated the importance of maintaining an Italian and European presence in the Sahel “to avoid further destabilization”. Italy is in the front row. But without the support of the US and major European partners, Rome’s mission appears increasingly complex.
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