WASHINGTON — The Pentagon mentioned Thursday that it has not restarted counterterrorism operations in Niger, a day after the top of U.S. airpower for Europe and Africa mentioned these flights had resumed.
Gen. James Hecker, responding to a query from The Associated Press at a safety convention Wednesday, mentioned the U.S. army has been capable of resume some manned plane and drone counterterrorism operations in Niger.
But the Pentagon issued an announcement Thursday saying these missions are just for defending U.S. forces and never the extra delicate, and broader, counterterrorism operations U.S. forces have efficiently run with the Nigerien army prior to now, including “stories to the contrary are false.”
“We are just flying ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) in order to monitor for any threats,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh mentioned at a press briefing Thursday. “We are flying ISR for force protection purposes and that’s it.”
Niger’s president was ousted in late July by a army junta. In the weeks since, the roughly 1,100 U.S. forces deployed there have been confined inside their army bases. News that some flights had resumed was seen as a superb signal that State Department diplomatic efforts with the junta had been enhancing safety on the bottom. For weeks the political uncertainty following the coup and the unstable safety scenario that adopted has led to the U.S. consolidating a few of its forces at a base farther from Niamey, Niger’s capital.
In a clarifying assertion Thursday, the spokesman for air forces in Africa, Col. Robert Firman, mentioned that in his Wednesday remarks, Hecker was simply referring to the air part perspective and was not addressing the general counterterrorism program in Niger.
In a preview offered by Hecker’s workers of an Atlantic Council taped program set to air Friday, he additional elaborated on the efforts on the bottom in Niger.
“The last thing we want to have happen is, we don’t want a shooting war over there. And the good news is we’ve been vastly successful at doing so with the help of the State Department,” Hecker mentioned. “The airspace is beginning to slowly come again up. And we’re capable of do a few of our surveillance operations primarily for power safety within the space. So that’s serving to us up fairly a bit to guarantee that we’re comfy.
“And all the intelligence shows right now that the risk to to our forces is fairly low. But we need to make sure that if something happens, we’re ready to go. And we’re in a good position now that they’re starting to allow us to use some of our surveillance for force protection.”
The U.S. has made Niger its predominant regional outpost for wide-ranging patrols by armed drones, coaching of host nation forces and different counterterrorism efforts towards Islamic extremist actions that through the years have seized territory, massacred civilians and battled overseas armies. The bases are a essential a part of America’s total counterterrorism efforts in West Africa.
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