The incident in which three U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers were killed, and two others were injured in Niger on Wednesday emphasizes the growing American involvement in Africa, where jihadist groups have taken root and Washington is rushing to backstop allies, Foreign Policy reports.
It’s still unknown what group carried out Wednesday’s deadly attack, but Nigerien forces have been fighting with jihadist groups like the Islamic State-affiliated Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in the area where the attack occurred.
U.S. Africa Command spokesperson Robyn Mack said that the killed U.S. soldiers were advising and assisting Nigerien troops fighting terrorists, as a part of broader efforts by U.S. troops to help African armies better track and combat terror groups in countries like Niger, Cameroon, and Chad.
The U.S. Army has also maintained a drone base in Niger’s capital of Niamey to monitor the movements of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated groups who slip back and forth across often porous borders with Mali, Nigeria, and Chad, Foreign Policy adds.
The Trump administration has moved ahead with Barack Obama-era plans to open a second U.S. drone base in the country near Agadez, where U.S. troops are already stationed. Approximately there are about 800 U.S. forces currently on the ground in Niger, one of the larger American footprints on the continent, charged primarily with training Nigerien forces and providing intel and reconnaissance support.
The largest U.S. base on the continent is in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, which gives U.S. forces the ability to launch airstrikes and special operations raids into nearby Yemen and Somalia while also covering the critical Bab el-Mandeb waterway that leads into the Red Sea, Foreign Policy notes.
American forces are also active in Chad, helping push back against Boko Haram, which is mostly active in Nigeria and its eastern border regions. Chad is one of the main centers of the international counter-terrorism fight, with U.S., French, and British troops working alongside local forces at the Multinational Joint Task Force in the capital of N’Djamena.
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