French outlet Le Monde reported that the Ivorian government approved the construction of a US base in northwestern Côte d’Ivoire, as the United States withdraws and relocates from Niger. Le Monde said that its sources could not confirm any details about the base beyond its location near the town of Odienne.
US forces are currently withdrawing from Niger and will be out of the country by September 2024. The Nigerien junta annulled its defense agreements with the United States in March, following a breakdown in relations after tense meetings with US officials over Niger’s growing ties with Russia and Iran.
US soldiers completed their withdrawal from Niamey Air Base on July 7 and will leave their second base in northern Niger by September 15. The US built the $110 million drone base in northern Niger in 2019 for its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities to support counterterrorism operations against the West African al Qaeda and IS affiliates. US Africa Command Commander Gen. Michael Langley warned that the loss of US basing in the Sahel would “degrade our ability to do active watching and warning, including for homeland defense.”
The United States has been discussing constructing new bases with Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana as alternatives to Niger since at least January 2024. This shift aligns with other US nonmilitary efforts that aim to contain the Sahelian Salafi-jihadi insurgency from spilling over and consuming the littoral states, such as the 2019 Global Fragility Act.The new base would be positioned well to support bilateral and regional coordination efforts, such as ECOWAS’s proposed counterterrorism force.
Langley met with top civilian and military leaders, including presidents and defense chiefs, in Côte d’Ivoire in late April and announced that the US Africa Command would be investing $65 million in Côte d’Ivoire in 2024.
The reported base in Côte d’Ivoire will have some practical range drawbacks compared to the base in northern Niger. American forces in Niger use MQ9 Reaper drones, which have a 1,150-mile range. Most of the Sahelian-based Salafi-jihadi areas of operations are within this range from Odienne. However, Odienne is farther from the epicenter of the insurgency near the Burkinabe, Malian, and Nigerien tri-border area, which will add transit time to drone rotations. Russia has also supplied at least Niger with antiair systems that can shoot down US drones if they do not secure overflight permission. Odienne is also crucially out of range of the Lake Chad Basin, limiting the resources available to monitor IS’s West Africa Province, which hosts the regional IS administrative office. Newer variants of the MQ9B “SkyGuardian” Reaper have unspecified extended ranges that could help mitigate some of these issues.
Credit: CI
