US troops and equipment will leave Niger in mid-September, the Pentagon says

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. troops ordered out of Niger by the West African country’s ruling junta will complete their withdrawal by mid-September, the Pentagon and Nigerien defense officials said Sunday.

The timeline was the product of four days of talks between the countries’ defense officials in the capital Niamey, a joint statement said.

Niger’s decision to expel U.S. forces was a blow to U.S. military operations in the Sahel, a vast region south of the Sahara where groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State operate.

US troops and some equipment have already begun to leave the country, a senior military official and a senior defense official said, briefing reporters on a call on Sunday. The plan is to remove any lethal, dangerous or classified equipment before the last U.S. troops leave, but items determined to be too expensive to fly out could instead be left to the Nigerien military, the officials said.

The U.S. will also leave behind the infrastructure it has built over the years to support the roughly 1,000 troops stationed there to carry out counterterrorism missions, the officials said. Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops remain in Niger, most of them at an airbase near Agadez, some 920 kilometers (550 miles) from the capital.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of the withdrawal.

The officials called Niger an “anchor” in U.S. counterterrorism efforts over the past decade, and they are still exploring how to fill that void. The officials said their hope is to continue working with the Nigerien military on counterterrorism in the future, even if U.S. troops are not stationed there.

The breakdown in military cooperation followed the ouster of the country’s democratically elected president last July by mutinous soldiers. A few months later, the ruling junta asked French troops to leave and turned to the Russian mercenary group Wagner for security assistance.

The officials said they had no indication that the Wagner group could ultimately increase its influence over the Nigerien military in the absence of U.S. personnel.

In October, Washington officially labeled the military takeover a coup, prompting US laws that limited the military support and assistance the country could provide to Niger.

Until recently, Washington viewed Niger as a key partner and ally in a region ravaged by coups in recent years, with millions of dollars invested in the Agadez base, which has been crucial to U.S. counterterrorism operations in the Sahel. The United States has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in training the Nigerien military since it began operations there in 2013.

The Pentagon has also said the US will move most of the roughly 100 troops it has deployed in neighboring Chad for now. But talks are expected to resume next month on revising an agreement that would allow US troops to be stationed in Chad.

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