The US military announced Monday that its forces have completed a withdrawal from Air Base 201 in Niger well ahead of a September 15 deadline for US forces to exit the country.
“The US Department of Defense and the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of Niger announce that the withdrawal of US forces and assets from Air Base 201 in Agadez is complete,” the Pentagon and Niger’s Defense Ministry said in a joint statement.
“The effective cooperation and communication between the US and Nigerien armed forces ensured that this turnover was finished ahead of schedule and without complications,” the statement added.
According to The New York Times, a small number of US troops remain at the US Embassy in Niger that will be leaving once they finish administrative duties. The US began withdrawing approximately 1,000 military personnel from Niger in June and finished pulling troops out of its other base in the country, Air Base 101, in July.
Air Base 201 served as a major drone hub for the US in the Sahel region and cost the US over $100 million to build. The US is looking to establish a similar base elsewhere in Africa and is reportedly in talks about the possibility with Benin, Ivory Coast, and Ghana, but there’s no sign that a deal has been reached.
The US stopped cooperating with Niger’s military following the July 2023 coup that ousted former president Mohamed Bazoum. The US was looking to stay in the country but was asked to leave following a meeting with the military-led government, known as the known as the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), back in March.
Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine said the US was asked to leave due to threats made by US officials in the meeting about Niger’s relationship with Russia and Iran.
I hope to see the US government in bankruptcy soon.
You tickled my funny bone, if I even have one!….
Yeah, right, sure they have. Just like they ‘left’ Iraq……and Germany and Japan and Korea……..
Can they really think anyone is still buying these transparent lies?
Yes, go ahead and clap, clap. Now who will fight IS in Niger? The Islamist guerrillas are the reason for the military coups in western Africa, with the coupsters saying the government doesn't fight them hard enough. The coups are not about "Western capitalist racist occupation!" as leftist will say, always exploiting any issue and people's ignorance. The one thousand soldiers weren't "occupying" or "controlling" anything, they were solely fighting the people who join the Islamists for an excuse to loot and kill villagers.
Look at Mali now. 5,000 French legionaires replaced by a few hundred Russian Wagner mercenaries. "Yes, Russia is decolonizing Africa!" Hilarious. The Wagners in the last two weeks went north in Mali to take control of the gold mines, and were ambushed and massacred.
It is reassuring that there is never a shortage of Westerners who know exactly what Africans should do, how to govern their countries, how to set up their societies, how to organize their economies, what values to hold, with who to do business and who to shun.
And what incredible luck the Africans are in, that these enlightened and in every way unquestionably superior Westerners and their wonderful non-interfering money lending institutions, altruistic NGO's, military and arms trade industries, and raw materials-hungry businesses volunteer all their good advice entirely selflessly, completely devoid of any self- or national interest.
Perhaps, I as a Westerner should offer advice also, as it appears to be something of my birthright. Well now, my advice would be for the Africans look out for number one: Africans. Perhaps strive for things like uniting the African continent politically and economically, establishing strong incentives for cooperation through mutual interests in order to consolidate power on the world stage to make a fist against, and to keep at arms length the World's most diabolical exploitive powers, the former colonial ones. Develop their own economies and value-adding industries, exploit strengths, solve or mitigate weaknesses, stimulate intra-African trade. And much more things Africans are better able to know than Westerners who because of their inherent goodness and boundless knowledge of all things African, bordering Godlike omniscience, want things to be better for Africans than Africans would be able to want them.
Okay, I will answer your question: The Africans will fight ISIS. If they want ISIS eliminated or driven off, it's their fight- not ours. Who decreed the US- or anyone but the Africans- has to police Africa? Since when does the US care about villagers being killed by opportunistic trigger-men? (Think about Gaza before you answer that.)
The fact is, we're not in Africa to rid the continent of ISIS. We are there to make sure no one else gets their hands on the resources of various African nations. ISIS is just the excuse. We're not there to 'protect civilians' or 'preserve democracy' or 'ensure freedoms' or any of that- we want Niger's uranium, gold, tin, petroleum, molybdenum, and more for ourselves. We've closed that base, sure- but how many contracts (and civilian 'contractors') were put in place ahead of the last truck out of Dodge?
This is much the same scenario being played out in the Ukraine- it was never about 'saving the Ukraine from Russia' and instead ALL about making sure the Russians don't take the whole neighborhood along with the considerable natural resources. That's been the plan since 2008; we overplayed our hand and now we're that close to a shooting war with the Russians. Is control of the Ukraine's natural resources a matter of US national security? I think not.
One down…. Nine Hundred Ninety Nine more to go…!
So where's the money shot? The US has never left a multi-million-dollar forward military base just because it's been asked to leave. There is something else going that prompted us to leave- either we've already got another base up and running somewhere else, or someone was paid off to make the US exit happen. I suspect some of both- if it were as easy as just asking us to leave, I have no doubt an awful lot of other nations large and small would be serving eviction notices to base commanders.