There are 1,016 U.S. troops still in Niger — a virtual powderkeg of political and military unrest since an armed junta overthrew its president and locked him and his family in the basement of the government palace in late July.
As a result, regional governments under the banner of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) is threatening to intervene militarily until the still-imprisoned leader is restored to office. The coup leaders have responded by rallying the people to their cause, as well as other armed juntas in the region.
One of the Niger junta leaders, by the way, Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, trained with U.S. military forces at Fort Benning, Georgia and the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
In fact, the U.S. military has been in Niger and training Nigeriens since 2013 when Washington signed a status of forces agreement with Niger to conduct “non-combat” operations in the country. Since then the U.S. has built a strategic drone base there from which to conduct its counterterrorism operations in that part of the world.