US says will complete troop pull-out from Niger early August

Abidjan, Ivory Coast — AFP

The US troop withdrawal from Niger, as demanded by the West African country’s military regime, will be completed in early August, a US general has announced.

“The withdrawal is going well,” General Kenneth Ekman, US commander for Africa, told reporters in Abidjan.

“It is ahead of schedule and this is because of the excellent coordination that we have had with our Nigerien military counterparts,” said Ekman, who heads up the US Africa Command Africom.

“I expect that we will be complete with the withdrawal by early August, well ahead of the 15 September mutually agreed deadline,”

The United States pulled out of a base in the Niger capital Niamey in early July, but another 200 US soldiers remain at the Agadez drone base in the north of the country.

US troops were part of an international force led by former colonizer France, to suppress radical Muslim insurgent groups across the region.

Nigerien military leaders who rose to power in a popular coup a year ago in March had told US and French forces to quit the country. The presence and excessive interventionism of foreign forces in the area have caused deep-seated resentment among the public.

“The consequences for regional security are very concerning,” Ekman said.

“I’ve been here speaking to your military and government leaders — we share the same concerns about the violent extremist threat that is growing and increasingly threatening the countries around the Sahel.”

He said the United States would continue to work with Ivory Coast security forces, but he denied media reports that the US military was looking to build a base in Odienne, in the north of the country.

US forces recently took part in the “Flintlock” military exercises in Ivory Coast that involved hundreds of soldiers from Western and African countries.