In October 2017, an attack in the West African country of Niger left 4 American Military
officers and 13 soldiers from Niger dead.
The ambush was widely reported by news organizations in the United States, but quickly turned into
a media frenzy only after President Donald Trump reportedly responded to one of the grieving
soldiers’ wives insensitively.
After that, most of the media’s attention focused on the president’s handling of the
tragedy.
But what largely got left out of this political back and forth, was the reason U.S. forces
are there in the first place.
So we wanted to know, why is the United States fighting in Niger, and even more broadly Africa
as a whole?
In 2002, only months after the 9/11 terror attacks, the former Bush administration launched
a little-known counterterrorism program called the Pan Sahel Initiative.
It was created to work with the militaries of African countries, including Niger, Mali,
Chad, and Mauritania, in an assist and advise capacity to crack down on terrorist and criminal
groups in the region.
The US saw the vast deserts and lawless regions of these countries as areas where potential
terror groups could thrive, potentially using them as a base to launch attacks against it.
These concerns, weren’t without warranted either.
In West Africa, poverty levels coupled with weak government institutions and failing states,
created the perfect conditions for the creation of terrorist safe havens.
Despite U.S. & even French presence there, terror groups began to thrive in the region,
especially Al Qaeda's affiliate in the area, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM.
While groups like this posed a threat to regional powers and western interests there, experts
say the groups were unlikely to strike the US or Europe from West Africa.
But the US still saw them as a threat, and once again expanded its military footprint
there.
In 2007, the U.S. created a unified military command center for the continent, referred
to as AFRICOM, which is responsible for all US military involvement in a total of 53 African
countries.
And while the US’s presence throughout Africa dramatically increased under President Bush,
the nation’s little-reported pivot to Africa, specific also saw increased support under
President Barack Obama’s tenure.
A conflict in the West African country of Mali broke out in 2012, when a rebel group
captured the north but quickly lost control to a number of islamist groups in the area
who wanted to implement their version of islamic law in the country.
A number of African countries and the French sent troops to the country to fight off the
rebel groups in the early phases of that conflict, but in 2013 the US got involved when president
Obama deployed about 100 troops to neighboring Niger to assist French troops in combat.
This was only one start of a growing US-Niger partnership.
In 2016, the US announced its plan to build a $100 million military base right in the
middle Niger to help combat militant groups and protect its borders from insurgence groups.
The base in Agadez will be the headquarters of a drone and surveillance program in Niger,
Mali, Libya, and beyond.
Today, more than 800 American troops are based in Niger and over 6,000 throughout the entire
continent.
And while coverage of conflicts and political crisis throughout Africa have consistently
failed to garner global media attention, some experts say that the continent will become
the new frontline in the US’s war on terror.
And while many of these nations still grapple with the effects of post-colonialism and teeter
between being fragile and failed states, their struggle against terror will likely continue.
With Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Qaeda groups throughout West Africa, and ISIS in Libya
and even the Democratic Republic of the Congo, American military involvement in the continent
is also set to increase.
So the question now isn’t whether the US will continue to militarily operate in Africa,
but rather if it will continue to operate in the shadows.
But Niger isn’t the only African country experiencing war, far from it.
Much of Africa is devastated by warfare.
To learn about all the ongoing wars on the continent, watch this episode to the right.
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