US troops to fully leave Niger by mid-September
The Department of Defense has already started withdrawing personnel from Niger.
BY NICHOLAS SLAYTON | PUBLISHED MAY 19, 2024 5:31 PM EDT
The United States and Niger reached an agreement to withdraw the roughly 1,000 American military troops from the African country.
The news came from a joint announcement by the U.S. and Niger. The “two nations reached a disengagement agreement to effect the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which has already begun,” they announced earlier on May 19. According to the agreement, all U.S. troops will leave by Sept. 15, 2024, ending a long presence in the country. For years Niger had been a focal point of U.S. counterterrorism in West Africa and the Sahel, home to two important air bases used by American forces.
The decision, the announcement said, came from days of negotiations in the Nigerien capital of Niamey. In March, Niger’s military junta, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland
(AKA the CNSP, after the French spelling), announced that it was expelling American troops from the country. The CNSP, which took power in a coup in July 2023, previously expelled the French military, which left at the end of that year. Niger is one of several West African countries to be taken over by a junta, others being Burkina Faso and Mali.
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