The Defense Department directed the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops in Niger to leave the country over the next several months Deputy Secretary of State Molly Phee, along with senior leaders at the Department of State, Department of Defense, U.S. Africa Command, the U.S. Embassy in Niger and others, are engaged in “ongoing frank discussions with the CNSP authorities in Niger,”
[April 19 2024 ]
in a meeting Friday, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and Nigerian Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine “committed today to initiate conversations in Niamey to begin planning an orderly and responsible withdrawal of U.S troops from Niger.”
[March 20 2024 Niger:ends U.S. military agreement – over uranium? ]
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Brown said Tuesday the U.S. is considering other options across West Africa.
[March 18 2024 ]
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Monday the U.S. officials had “lengthy and direct” discussions with the junta officials that were also in part spurred by concerns over Niger’s potential relationships with Russia and Iran.
[March 17 2024 ]
A senior U.S. military official said on Sunday there had been no immediate changes to the status of about 1,000 American military personnel stationed in the country. The Pentagon has continued to conduct surveillance drone flights from Air Base 201 to protect U.S. troops and alert the Nigerien authorities if the flights detected an imminent terrorist threat.
“The canceling of the security agreement is not quite a direct expulsion of the American military presence, as happened with the French,” said Hannah Rae Armstrong, an analyst focused on peace and security in the Sahel. “It’s more likely an aggressive negotiation tactic to extract more benefits from cooperating with the Americans.”
[5:02 pm est ]
Niger Orders American Troops to Leave Its Territory
The West African country’s military junta said the presence of U.S. forces was “illegal.”
[10:52 am est ]
Niger’s junta has ended a military agreement that allowed US personnel to be deployed in the country. Abdramane stopped short of saying US forces should leave. The State Department said Sunday in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that talks were frank and that it was in touch with the junta.
Saturday’s announcement came in the week that a delegation from Washington had been in Niamey for talks with the country’s military leadership.
The US delegation had accused Niger of making a secret deal to supply uranium to Iran. Col Abdramane described the accusation as “cynical” and “reminiscent of the second Iraq war”. Obama announced the return of US forces, in the form of aerial support, in an effort to halt the advance of ISIL forces, render humanitarian aid to stranded refugees and stabilize the political situation.
In a media note, the US Department of State said that “Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander, and AFRICOM Commander General Michael Langley will travel to Niger from March 12 till 13 to continue ongoing discussions since August with leaders of the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland (CNSP) regarding Niger’s return to a democratic path and the future of our security and development partnership.”
In October, Washington officially designated the military takeover as a coup, which triggered US laws restricting the military support and aid that it can provide to Niger. But in December, Phee said the US was willing to restore aid and security ties if Niger met certain conditions.
Uranium Spot Price (I:USPNM)
81.32 USD/lb for Feb 2024
GoviEx Uranium Inc (TSX-V:GXU, OTCQX:GVXXF) head of investor relations Isabel Vilela joins Proactive’s Stephen Gunnion with more details of the due diligence process for debt financing of its Madaouela Uranium Project in Niger.
Vilela said SLR Consulting has been appointed by a prospective lender to conduct environmental and social due diligence for the project. The debt financing process is expected to take several months, during which GoviEx Uranium will continue advancing other project areas, including early-stage field work at Madaouela and discussions with off-takers.
The company has also received expressions of interest amounting to approximately $200 million in project-related debt finance. These expressions of interest were secured when uranium spot prices were around $50-$55, but with current prices at $90, the project’s attractiveness has increased.
Concerning the political situation in Niger, Vilela said logistical challenges due to border closures are being resolved following ECOWAS’s sanction lifting. The government, owning 20% of the Madaouela project, supports it, and efforts towards local employment and development continue, with 100% of employees being locals.
[September 24 2023 said to raise Uranium price ]
In the week to September 18th uranium’s spot price hit $65 a pound, its highest since 2011, reports uxc, a data firm. At the industry’s yearly shindig in London, which drew a record 700 delegates this month, some warned it could reach $100
[September 20 2023 ]
As reported in The Spectacle, Niger, a prominent player in the global uranium market, has opted to raise the price of uranium from 0.80 euros (US$.85) per kilogram (kg) to 200 euros (US$213.6) per kilogram.
Uranium Spot Price (I:USPNM)
46.38 USD/lb for Aug 2023
95.4 euros/kg
[September 18 2023 World Bank halts disbursements for all operations ]
NIAMEY, Niger/WASHINGTON: A week after Niger’s military seized power from democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum, the World Bank on Wednesday said it had halted disbursements for all operations in the fragile West African nation until further notice.
Private sector partnerships “will continue with caution,” said the bank in a statement, adding that it will “closely monitor the situation.”
Niger has one of the largest World Bank portfolios in Africa, amounting to $4.5 billion covering the country’s priority sectors, and it has also received $600 million in direct budget support from the bank between 2022 and 2023.
[August 20 2023 ECOWAS, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, meet coup leader ]
Gen Abdourahamane Tchiani met mediators from the West African regional bloc Ecowas in the capital, Niamey. During the visit on Saturday, mediators also met Mr Bazoum, who has been in detention with his wife and son since the coup.
Their delegation was led by former Nigerian military leader Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar and also included Nigeria’s most senior Muslim leader, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’adu Abubakar III.
He wields huge influence in Niger, part of which used to be in the Sokoto Caliphate, a powerful kingdom before colonial rule.
Niger’s coup leader promised to return the West African nation to civilian rule within three years.
[August 9 2023 CRR – Tuareg based Insurgency ]
Rhissa Ag Boula said that his new Council of Resistance for the Republic (CRR) aimed to reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum A former rebel leader and politician in Niger has launched a movement opposing the junta that took power in a July 26 coup, Rhissa Ag Boula is a Nigerien Tuareg politician and former leader of rebel factions in both the 1990–1995 and the 2007–2009 Tuareg based Insurgencies. He was Nigerien Minister of Tourism from 1996-1999, and again from 1999-2004.
Rhissa Ag Boula, a former Tuareg rebel leader who served as a minister in the Niger government for eight years, has been released from jail, a senior Niger official said this week. The official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed press reports when reached by phone that the former tourism minister, who was jailed a year ago in connection with a murder probe, had been freed early this month. He denied the release was linked to the freeing a month earlier of four soldiers kidnapped by Ag Boula’s brother, Mohamed Ag Boula. The soldiers were flown home to Niamey in early February after Libya obtained their release. Mohamed Ag Boula, claiming to speak on behalf of a Tuareg rebel group, had said he would not release the men unless his brother was freed. The soldiers were captured in an ambush on 1 October in the Air mountain range 1,000 km northeast of the capital. Mohamed Ag Boula claimed the kidnapping on behalf of the now-dissolved Air and Azaouak Liberation Front (FLAA). Rhissa Ag Boula headed the FLAA until a 1995 peace deal that brought a four-year Tuareg rebellion in northern Niger to an end. He won a senior position in government as part of the deal but resigned as tourism minister in February last year and was arrested shortly afterwards in connection with the murder of an official of Niger’s ruling party in the Tuareg stronghold of Agadez, 800 km northeast of Niamey. In an interview in October with Radio France Internationale, his brother Mohamed said he was personally responsible for the kidnapping of the four soldiers. He also said he was leading a 200-strong group fighting to defend the rights of the Tuareg, Toubou and Semori nomadic populations of northern Niger. “We are defending our rights in Niger. The current government has not implemented the 1995 accords. Besides, we are demanding the liberation of all members of the ex-rebellion currently in detention,” Mohamed Ag Boula said. Niger’s interior minister said the assailants were the same people who had launched several attacks on vehicles travelling along the main trans-Sahara highway in northern Niger during the preceding months. The attacks followed reports that former Tuareg rebel fighters, integrated into the national army under the 1995 peace deal, had deserted following Rhissa Ag Boula’s arrest. They were alleged to be regrouping in the Air Mountains to resume hostilities. The authorities in Niger strongly denied both the allegations of mass desertion and the renaissance of a rebellion. They insisted on calling the gunmen bandits, not rebels. Even after the Tuareg rebellion formally ended in 1995, banditry remained a serious problem in northern Niger until 2000, forcing traffic on the trans-Sahara highway to travel in convoys protected by heavily-armed soldiers.
[August 7 2023 Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met military ]
Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met with some of the members of the military junta in Niger Monday – a significant diplomatic push to restore democratic rule in what has been a key US partner nation.
Nuland met with Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the self-proclaimed chief of defense, and three colonels supporting him for more than two hours
[August 6 2023 France backs ECOWAS…no activity ]
By Sunday evening, there were no signs of a mobilization of armed forces in neighboring Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and home to the biggest local military.
[April 5 2023 ]
France “firmly and resolutely supports the efforts of ECOWAS to thwart this attempted putsch,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement, referring to a group of 15 West African countries that has given the putschists in Niger until Sunday to step down or face a possible military intervention. “The future of Niger and the stability of the entire region are at stake,” the ministry said.
Crescent Shift 