Nigerian junta leaders announced their intent to sever military ties with the United States over the weekend, representing a potential end between the U.S. and one of its most important allies for African counterterrorism.
The U.S. military has roughly 650 military personnel in Niger, according to a White House report to Congress from December, who are stationed at a major air base in the northern part of the country where the U.S. would conduct manned and unmanned aerial counterterrorism surveillance.
“The American presence in the territory of the Republic of Niger is illegal,” Niger’s military spokesman, Col. Amadou Abdramane, said on national television, adding that the U.S. presence “violates all the constitutional and democratic rules, which would require the sovereign people — notably through its elected officials — to be consulted on the installation of a foreign army
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