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In 2013, the White House announced that President Barack Obama had deployed 100 military personnel to Niger.
“This deployment will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region,” Obama said in a letter to the House speaker.
The country, along with Chad and Mali, serves as a bridge between north and sub-Saharan Africa, and all three are significant transit routes for local al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates. The terror groups use these routes to generate revenue that helps them recruit, expand and export attacks, according to US officials.
ISIS also uses the transit routes to move fighters northward, where they gain easy access to Europe and the West. The terror group is attempting to infiltrate the gold mining industry in Niger so it can sell the precious metal on the black market and finance terrorism, according to one official.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – the terror group’s local affiliate – operates along the border between Mali and Niger despite a French-led military counterterrorism operation.The US military says it largely plays a supporting role by providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets in support of French forces.
“Niger is an important partner of ours, we have a deep relationship with them,” said Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the director of the Joint Staff.
Before the Pentagon document’s release, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, had told CNN on Wednesday that he believes the troops “were engaged in a mission that they were not authorized by law to participate in and that they were not trained to participate in. And that is a significant reason that they tragically lost their lives.” Kaine sits on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.
The US works with allies in the region
The United States is not the only nation with a large presence in the region, McKenzie said.
France has about 5,000 forces in the area, he said. The French operation also involves forces from Germany, Mali, Niger and other countries.
“We have about 1,000 forces distributed over the Chad Basin, most of them in Niger, but not all of them,” McKenzie said last year.
The Chad Basin area includes the nations that border Lake Chad: Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad.
Nigeria militant group Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, is a threat to the nations in the Chad Basin.
This year, the US Africa Command will launch its MQ-9 Reapers – “hunter/killer” drones with advanced intelligence gathering capabilities – from an air base just outside the city.
Africa Command described the construction of the Agadez air base as “projected to be the biggest military labor troop project in US Air Force history.” The United States has been using a local airport while the base is under construction, according to US Africa Command.
CNN’s Barbara Starr and Arwa Damon contributed to this report.