“There is a gap on the other side,” he says, referring to the lawless areas in countries bordering Niger’s restive Tillabéri region. Beyond the invisible borders, the states of Mali and Burkinabe are barely functioning, the general says. Parts of the territory have been seized by terrorists linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. “Mali is a failed state. Burkina is failing,” says Abu Tarka, who, as head of Niger’s High Peacebuilding Authority, advises his civilian government on combating a head-on terrorist threat, much of it spilling over hundreds of miles of unpoliced borders. “As for Nigeria,” he gestures in the direction of the vast country to the south. “We say we have a border with Boko Haram,” he says, referring to Boko Haram fundamentalists who, at least until recently, often crossed the border to attack Niger villages. The world’s poorest country, according to the United Nations’ Human Development Index, Niger is rarely seen as a geopolitical nexus. But that is exactly what has happened as dominoes fall, terrorism spreads and Russian influence grows in the Sahel, a subcontinental belt of semi-desert that stretches thousands of miles across Africa. In May, Olaf Scholz visited German troops stationed at a base near Niger’s border with Mali, expanding Berlin’s mission to train Nigerien soldiers in counter-terrorism. The German chancellor met with his counterpart Mohamed Bazoum, who was elected president last year in Niger’s first democratic transfer of power. Western officials have praised Bazum, a former teacher and right-hand man of the previous president, as someone who is willing to fight terrorists and tackle the root causes of radicalization. His government has promised to increase the scope and efficiency of the state, including by improving its inadequate school system. It has started tentative peace talks with some terrorist groups. Scholtz was the latest in a series of senior European, US and other officials to pledge support for Niger. In 2019, the US opened a drone base near the northern city of Agadez to conduct surveillance. France, whose troops were kicked out of Mali this year, has begun to step up its presence in Niger, a pivot to what has been called Paris’ “ultimate partner” in the Sahel. Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum (centre) and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz leave the Presidential Palace in Niamey, Niger in May this year. Berlin trains Niger’s soldiers to fight terrorism © Boureima Hama/AFP/Getty Images If the jihadist threat intensifies in Niger – and particularly if Bazum’s government falls in one of the coups that have toppled successive political regimes in the region – analysts say the Islamists could end up controlling a strip of the Sahel contiguous to Mali in northern Nigeria. This would threaten West Africa’s most prosperous coastal states, such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo or Benin, which have largely escaped terrorist attacks. It could also trigger waves of migration to Europe, they say. “Western powers say Niger is a stronghold against all these extremist groups,” says Abou Tarka. “They say Niger is a democracy, that we have to help Niger survive in a collapsing neighborhood.”
Power vacuum
With the exception of Algeria and Benin, all of Niger’s neighbors are in crisis. A military junta has seized power in Mali, where a domestic Tuareg insurgency continues and both Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, a coalition of al-Qaida-linked groups, and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara control and execute attacks. In Burkina Faso, a junta came to power in January, citing the inability of the civilian government to deal with a jihadist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions. These days, if anything, Burkina is considered more dangerous than Mali. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has also gained ground in the region. Mali’s generals have replaced French troops with mercenaries supplied by Russia’s shadowy Wagner group, some of whom have been involved in atrocities. Wagner also maneuvers in the Central African Republic, where he protects the president and runs lucrative businesses, including gold mining. Niger’s restive Tillabéri region is patrolled by troops to prevent terrorists linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State from crossing the border © Colin Delfosse Chad, previously a staunch ally of France, has been volatile since Idriss Déby, president and commander of the most effective fighting machine in the Sahel, died in battle last year at the hands of rebels allegedly trained by Wagner. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, attended Deby’s funeral in N’Djamena. Much of the rot began when Western powers, including France and the UK, engineered the fall of longtime Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The resulting power vacuum sparked a flood of weapons into the Sahel, arming ancient rivalries and providing Islamist and criminal gangs with the means to terrorize. Wagner is now also fighting in Libya, alongside rebel general Khalifa Haftar. Ibrahim Yahaya, senior Sahel analyst at the Crisis Group, supports the idea that Russia has opened “a second front” in the Sahel aimed at destabilizing European interests. Using Wagner, he says, is a cheap way to create trouble that provides deniability and costs Moscow nothing. “It’s a different way of diplomacy. You use private companies that are there to make money, but then you use them to further your strategic goals.”
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The most immediate concern, Yahaya says, is the plethora of Islamist groups that now control large swaths of Mali, Burkina Faso and parts of northern Nigeria – and that have made some inroads into Niger. Ornella Moderan, head of the Sahel program at the Institute for Security Studies, points out that Niger does not stand entirely alone. Mauritania, he notes, has avoided a coup and Niger itself is fighting terrorism on several fronts, including in the Tillabéri region and the area around Diffa on the southeastern border with Nigeria, where Boko Haram has operated in the past. “Robbery and acts of violence” have also been seen in the south-central border region with Nigeria, Moderan says, which “could develop into a third front”.
The disaster in Mali
At France’s military base in Niamey, General Hervé Pierre, a veteran of French deployments in the Sahel, has no doubts about Niger’s strategic importance. “Niger is one of the countries that has a strong and very professional army that is able to deal with terrorists,” he says, after the roar of two Mirage fighters taking off from the base. “President Bazoum has taken charge of this fight at the regional level and the Nigerian Army is really fighting the enemy.” France, Pierre says, has learned lessons from Mali, where French troops were initially hailed as liberation heroes in 2013 only to leave the country a decade later when relations soured. France was accused of supporting a civilian government that many saw as lacking legitimacy. This sparked anti-French sentiment in the country, which spread on social media, allegedly fueled by Russian troll farms operating in the region. In January, Mali’s second military junta in as many years expelled France’s ambassador. In May he ended a defense deal with Paris, forcing France to close its military bases. Some people on the streets of Bamako, the capital, celebrated by displaying Russian flags. General Hervé Pierre, a veteran of French deployments in the Sahel, at the French military base in Niamey © Colin Delfosse The French are trying to avoid a repeat of the Mali disaster by taking a soft-soft approach in Niger. No French flag flies on its massive base near Niamey International Airport. Nigerian captains command platoons of mainly French troops and vice versa. French troops are supporting operations to set up permanent garrisons on the border with Mali, both to stop incursions and to persuade displaced villagers to return to their homes. “The aim is to strengthen the presence of the state in the eyes of the people,” says Mahaman Moha, a government policy adviser. Despite their low-key approach, the French do take immediate action. In June, French airstrikes, including Reaper drones, killed nearly 40 members of what Paris called an “armed terrorist group” traveling by motorcycle from Burkina Faso to Niger. If there are more such attacks, civilian casualties are inevitable, admit members of Niger’s armed forces. “There is no clean war,” says one. Groups belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked JNIM are capable of infiltrating villages, making them difficult to detect. Lisa Tschörner, a Niger expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, says some Islamist groups have won support from local communities by offering what she called “alternative ways of governance and justice” to people who felt marginalized. Islamist ideology, he says, has deeper roots in Niger than its authorities admit. Terrorists have often exploited local rivalries, Tschörner adds, especially those between pastoralists who roam in search of pasture and farmers who lead a sedentary life. “Domestic conflicts that have been characterized as banditry for too long have been taken over by jihadist groups,” he says. “Then you have the…
