The expected withdrawal of U.S. forces from Niger will endanger U.S. counter-terrorism operations and hand Russia more influence in Africa as American and western ties on the continent fracture.

Around 1,000 troops in Niger are expected to eventually withdraw from the country after the conclusion of ongoing high-level talks between Niamey and Washington following a military coup in the African country last year, the Pentagon has said.

A forced withdrawal from Niger is a major setback for U.S. military as it fights against Islamic extremist groups across the Sahel, a volatile region that stretches from Senegal in western Africa to the Red Sea.

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At risk for the U.S. is not just keeping ISIS, Boko Haram and other insurgent groups in check, but also the growing influence of Russia, Iran and China, all of which are jockeying for power in Africa along with the West.

But Western powers like the U.S. and European Union seem to be losing the battle in the Sahel.

“There’s been this hollowing out of all of the international security cooperation,” said  Joseph Siegle, director of research of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University. “They were all part of a broader regional effort to try to support those countries.”

Siegle attributes the shift to a series of governments being toppled by military juntas and an anti-western disinformation campaign supported by malicious actors in Russia or other hostile nations. But he said closer ties with Russia will harm those countries in the future, because Moscow is not investing economically into those nations.

“These countries are going to feel huge strains, and they’ll continue to try to put on a good face to [show] this is working, but it’s not something they’re going to be able to sustain,” he added. “Something’s going to have to give here.”

The immediate risk of a Niger withdrawal is that the Sahel could erupt into more violence as the U.S. and France, along with other western powers, face eroding influence with military juntas that have close ties with Russia and other rival powers.

Threats from al-Qaeda and ISIS-linked insurgent groups have already spiked in other countries ruled by military governments, including Mali, which booted French forces in 2022 but has since seen terrorist groups double their territorial control.

Jacques Du Preez, analyst at the South African research and intelligence firm In on Africa, warned that a hollower U.S. presence in the Sahel could create conditions for an Islamic extremist resurgence like the rise of ISIS in 2014.

“It’s the most active frontier in the global conflict against terrorism outside of the Middle East,” he said of the Sahel. “The place that al-Qaeda and ISIS both focused in on was the Sahel.”

“They understand that this is a very vital region [and] very strategic region that if they could get a foothold,” he explained, “it could allow them to have a very big impact, not just in Africa, but also in surrounding regions like Europe.”

Du Preez also stressed that other nations in the Sahel region are at risk if instability rises, including Nigeria.

A near-term risk is Chad, where the U.S. is repositioning some troops after a military coup about three years ago. Talks are ongoing, however, and are expected to pick up after elections beginning May 6.

Chad’s leader, Mahamat Idriss Déby, has closer ties with the U.S. than he does with Russia.

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Déby will likely prevail in what is expected to be a sham electoral process and would have no reason to push the U.S. out of the country, experts say. Still, Chad faces other political factions inside of the country that are closer with Russia, posing a potential longer term threat.

“The Russians have thrown a lot in with many of [Déby’s] potential challengers,” said Du Preez. “There’s a clear move to isolate Chad and attempt to install their own regime.”

While experts see the rise of juntas — and sidelining of western powers — as creating instability that could empower terrorist groups, these same military leaders have cited the inability of governments to suppress extremist threats as justification for their takeovers.

The Niger government fell in a July military coup that paved the way for Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani to seize power, promising to more effectively counter terrorist threats.

Instead of turning to the West, Tchiani has fostered relations with Russia’s private military company Wagner Group, which has ties to Moscow and has long exploited the resources of African nations.

The Wagner Group was previously led by founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who staged a short-lived mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin and was killed in a plane crash last August.

Putin has since moved to exert more influence over the mercenary group, which gives Moscow a low-profile foothold in Africa. Wagner Group appears to have rebranded into a successor in the newly formed Africa Corps, which sent military trainers to Niger in April.

Russia also has close relations and security agreements with Mali and Burkina Faso, both of which are controlled by military juntas, and Libya, a country torn between two major rival factions. The Central African Republic is also close to Russia and is reportedly discussing an agreement to host a Russian military base.

A scaled-back U.S. presence in the Sahel is likely to encourage more Russian influence in the region, particularly if terrorist threats grow.

Siegle, from the National Defense University, said the “main way that Russia has gained influence is at the expense of the West.”

“A lot of this is an information war that’s happening,” he said. “But its entry point are these military leaders who are authoritarians that are seeing Russia as their strongest international patron to keep their hold on power.”

It’s not just Russia: China also has its hands in Africa.

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, a project of large-scale investments primarily for infrastructure in Asia and Africa, has financed loans to African nations that the West has accused of being predatory to give Beijing military, financial and political influence. China, however, only has one base in Africa, in Djibouti.

Iran is also another regional player, backing a proxy group called the Islamic Movement of Nigeria and the government in Sudan, which is waging a destructive civil war against a rebel group.

Last year, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe to shore up ties with all three nations.

Some experts see a populist, anti-western movement that is organic in nature — even if fueled in part by China and Russia and exploited by military juntas — and centered on long-standing grievances with formerly western colonial powers, but also disenfranchisement with the current state of conditions.

Abigail Kabandula, director of the Africa Center at the University of Denver, said the U.S. is losing its influence in Africa partly because Washington has failed to address terrorism, a threat she added has “mushroomed” in the past decade.

“The question that a number of [people] propose is why is the West or the French in the region if we still have the same problems and the problems have actually grown?” she said. “It’s a matter of rethinking the whole counterterrorism approach in the region. Whether we have the U.S. or not, it’s about how counterterrorism is being addressed.”

Kabandula also said the U.S. has relied largely on security arrangements with African nations in the Sahel and failed to focus more cooperation on economic or other needs, creating a “power vacuum around the continent.”

“The U.S. has not supported a number of countries in the things that they wanted to pursue,” she said. “A number of African countries have really asked for other things like development, development projects, development aid, or infrastructure development. Those have not come forth from the U.S. and so African countries [look] to China for help.”

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Will Walldorf, a professor studying politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University, said he supports the U.S. withdrawal from Niger because it can allow Washington to recalibrate its approach to Africa and counterterrorism.

Walldorf said the U.S. focus on counterterrorism is “missing the heart of the problem” and that it was “staggering” how terrorism has surged under U.S. watch.

“The lack of good governance, the lack of meeting the everyday needs of citizens in West Africa, where we know food insecurity is extreme, has been really the core driver of terrorist recruitment in the region,” he said.

“If you can get to those sort of core issues,” he added, that would be “on a different playing field then what we’re offering now in terms of kind of a force-first approach.”

US says it will return to Chad for talks to keep troops in the country

The U.S. military plans to return to Chad within a month for talks about revising an agreement that allows it to keep troops based there, an American general said Wednesday.

The U.S. said last month it was withdrawing most of its contingent of about 100 troops from Chad after the government questioned the legality of their operations there. This followed Niger's decision to order all U.S. troops out of the country, dealing a blow to U.S. military operations in the Sahel, a vast region south of the Sahara desert where groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group operate.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, made the comments to reporters in Ghana at the second annual African Maritime Forces Summit, or AMFS.

He said the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Chad was expected to be temporary, and Chad had communicated to Washington that it wanted to continue the security partnership after the presidential election there.

"We’ll come back for discussions within a month to see in what ways, and what they need, to be able to build further in their security construct and also against terrorism,” Langley said.

Government officials in Chad couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The presidential election in Chad is scheduled for Monday, and analysts expect the incumbent to win.

Chad’s interim president, Mahamat Deby Itno, seized power after his father, who ran the country for more than three decades, was killed fighting rebels in 2021. Last year, the government announced it was extending the 18-month transition for two more years, which led to protests across the country.

Langley said the withdrawal of U.S. forces was a temporary step “as part of an ongoing review of our security cooperation, which will resume after Chad’s May 6 presidential election.”

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Both Chad and Niger have been integral to the U.S. military’s efforts to counter violent extremist organizations across the Sahel region, but Niger’s ruling junta ended an agreement last month that allows U.S. troops to operate in the West African country.

Niger is home to a major U.S. air base, in the city of Agadez, about 920 kilometers (550 miles) from the capital, Niamey, using it for manned and unmanned surveillance flights and other operations. The U.S. has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in training Niger’s military, since it began operations there in 2013.

US withdraws troops from base in Chad following government demand

The US military has withdrawn troops from a French military base in Chad after the country demanded they leave last month, a Pentagon spokesperson and other sources familiar with the matter told CNN on Wednesday.

More than half of the US troops stationed at the French military base in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, have now left the country and relocated to Germany.

CNN previously reported that fewer than 100 US troops were stationed in Chad, most of them as part of the US’ Special Operations Task Force, an important hub for US Special Operations Forces in the region.

The Special Operations Task Force was previously based in Germany before moving to Chad in 2021.

“We can confirm the safe and orderly relocation of approximately 60 US forces from Chad to Germany where they will continue their work,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Pete Nguyen told CNN on Wednesday. “This temporary step is part of an ongoing review of our security cooperation, which will resume after the May 6 Presidential election.”

The withdrawal was completed on Tuesday, Nguyen said.

Some US forces will remain in the country working out of the US embassy there, in addition to the Marines who will continue providing embassy security, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The withdrawal of the troops in Chad comes just over a month after the military government of neighboring Niger ended its agreement with the US military that allowed American personnel to operate in the country. The US is currently negotiating a safe and orderly withdrawal of the over 1,000 US troops still in Niger, with discussions focusing mostly on logistics like securing clearances for military flights in and out of the country, an official said.

The withdrawal from Chad comes after Chadian officials sent a letter to the US defense attaché last month threatening to cancel the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, which determines the rules and conditions under which US military personnel can operate in the country. The letter demanded that all US forces leave the French base in N’Djamena, CNN previously reported.

A defense official and another source familiar with the matter characterized the dispute as largely a paperwork issue that will likely be resolved after Chad’s elections this month.

But taken together, the developments come at a critical time for US interests in Africa, as American officials have warned that Russian influence is expanding across the continent.

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Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, head of US Africa Command, told lawmakers in March that Central African countries were “in a dilemma,” needing developmental assistance from countries like Russia and China but balancing those needs against “risks to national sovereignty.”

“In this region, the stakes are high,” Langley said.

Langley visited Chad in January this year alongside AFRICOM’s senior enlisted advisor, Sgt. Maj. Michael Woods. While in the country, Langley met with Chadian military leaders including Gen. Abakar Abdelkerim Daoud, Chad’s Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, according to an AFRICOM press release at the time.

Langley said in the release that AFRICOM “remains dedicated to building enduring partnerships with Chad and other African nations.”