Niger is not to be confused with Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Niger lies just to the north, part of the sprawling region directly below the Sahara Desert that for years has faced a growing threat from various groups of Islamic extremists.
’s border areas with Mali and Burkina Faso from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and the al-Qaida affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, known as JNIM.
U.S. partners battling extremists in the Sahel are dwindling. Notably, Mali’s military junta last month ordered the 15,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission there to leave, claiming they had failed in their mission. Now Wagner forces remain there, accused by watchdogs of human rights atrocities.with more than $500 million in military assistance and training programs since 2012, one of the largest such support programs in sub-Saharan Africa., the U.S.
Observers say West Africa’s Sahel region has become one of the world’s deadliest regions for extremism. West Africa recorded over 1,800 extremist attacks in the first six months of this year resulting in nearly 4,600 deaths, a top regional official told the United Nations Security Council this week., said the official, Omar Touray, the president of the ECOWAS Commission. Observers have warned that the extremist threat is also expanding south toward states like Ghana and Ivory Coast.
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