A legal decision that the West African country has had a coup could force the U.S. to stop sending military aid.
The Biden administration is refusing to call the military-backed ouster of Niger’s president a “coup,” knowing that doing so could trigger an end to U.S. security aid to a country that’s key to battling terrorism and curbing Russian influence in Africa.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.by his bodyguards last week. The country’s military then endorsed the ouster, and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who oversees the presidential guards, declared he was leading a transitional government. The exact reasons for the coup are unclear, but Tchiani has spoken vaguely of the need to stop the country’s “demise.”and they’ve demanded that Nigerien security forces restore him to power.
In 2019, the Pentagon opened a new drone base in the Nigerien city of Agadez that it uses to strike terrorist groups across West and North Africa. The facility, which hosts MQ-9 Reaper drones, cost the U.S. $100 million to construct and roughly $30 million a year to maintain. Until the past few days, Niamey was only one of the few remaining democracies in the Sahel: since 2021, neighboring governments in Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad have fallen to military coups.
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