An agreement was made between US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and the Niger government over the withdrawal of US soldiers from the country, according to a source with knowledge of the situation who spoke with Reuters, a British news agency, late on Friday.
As of last year, there were just over 1,000 American soldiers in Niger, where they were stationed at two different locations, one of which was an Air Base 201 drone base that cost over $100 million to build close to Agadez in the country’s center.
Targeting al Qaeda offshoot Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen and Islamic State terrorists in the Sahel has been a practice of the base since 2018.
A source told Reuters that discussions over the nature of the troop withdrawal will take place in the next several days. It stated that despite this move, the United States and Niger would continue to have diplomatic and economic ties.
More than 1,000 US military personnel are expected to depart Niger in the upcoming months, according to a report from the New York Times earlier on Friday.
A military agreement that permitted military soldiers and civilian employees from the US Department of Defense to be on Nigerian soil was withdrawn with immediate effect, according to the ruling junta that took power there last month.
