The advantages of being a super-power tend to overweigh the minuses. However, every right carries a responsibility. The US Special Operations Command in Africa has begun its annual counter-terror exercise in Niger Republic six months after the deaths of its soldiers raised questions about its presence in the West African nation.
A report says the exercise which will run for ten days will help to strengthen the country’s ability to combat all manner of extremist groups operating in its domain. About two thousand troops from twenty African and Western nations are participating in the exercise.
At the commencement of the exercise, Niger’s Minister of Defense, Kalla Moutari, was in real excitement when he declared, “Not one week goes by without our population, our defense and security forces, in all of our countries being touched by some sort of terrorist or armed attack. No one country can face all these complex challenges alone.”
But the US has quietly been involved Niger before last October when four of its soldiers and four Nigerien soldiers were killed in an extremist ambush. Politicians demanded to know more about the US role in Africa.
The number of American military personnel there has grown from 100 to 800 in the past five years, as an American drone base is being built in the north of the country.
The well known terrorist threats in the region include al-Qaida-linked fighters in Mali and Burkina Faso, Islamic State-affiliated fighters in Niger and Nigeria and the Nigeria-based Boko Haram.
The US envoy in Niger, Eric Whitaker, has declared that the commitment of the country and its neighbors in fighting extremism is crucial as “underdevelopment and poverty are exploited to recruit future terrorists”
The current military exercise is the third to involve civilian law enforcement agencies, with the State Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance Program this year training personnel to detect, investigate and prosecute extremists.
