The Wall Street Journal reported on January 4 that talks were under way as the Biden administration was seeking to establish drone bases at airfields in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Benin following a coup in Niger over the summer that jeopardized the U.S. military position there.
Stars and Stripes magazine reported in December that the U.S. cut the number of military personnel deployed to Niger by more than 40% in the wake of the coup, which, ironically, was led by a Special Forces officer, Moussa Salaou Barmou, trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the National Defense University in Washington.[1]
The coup plotters characterized Niger’s deposed President Mohamed Bazoum as a “corrupt pawn of France,” repudiating his support for a $110 million U.S. drone base in the desert city of Agadez, which has functioned as a hub for U.S. drone operations in West Africa.