Niger has been an important ally to the United States in the Sahel region of Africa, and the nation's recent coup has caused concern among Western observers, especially given Russia's growing influence in Niger.
Niger President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown on July 26 and General Abdourahmane Tchiani, the former commander of Bazoum's guard, announced on state-run TV that he had assumed power.
Though Kremlin officials called for calm in Niger, media outlets reported that many participants in last weekend's pro-coup protest in Niger's capital city of Niamey carried Russian flags and chanted messages of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin has also made it known that he seeks stronger ties in Africa, and he recently offered free grain to nations on the continent after he suspended the Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine.
The Wagner Group of Russian mercenaries, which has contracts in countries such as the Central African Republic and Mali, could look to take advantage of the unrest in Niger. Reuters reported on Saturday that a message posted on Telegram praising the coup was believed to be from Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. The news organization could not confirm it was Prigozhin, but the speaker reportedly offered to send Wagner fighters to help restore order.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has given hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to Niger in recent years and operates two bases in the nation where about 1,100 American troops are stationed.
Despite these factors, David Silbey—an associate professor of history at Cornell and director of teaching and learning at Cornell in Washington—told Newsweek that he doesn't "think we're going to see a direct confrontation between the U.S. and Russia in Niger."
"Neither side really wants to get pulled into that," he said. "The risk is of an accidental encounter between U.S. forces and Russian-supported locals. Somebody finds themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and shooting starts. Accidental wars are not all that uncommon, unfortunately."
Similarly, Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, doesn't expect to see a clash between American soldiers and Wagner fighters.
"I think the likelihood of a confrontation between U.S. and Wagner troops in Niger is low," he told Newsweek.
He said that while Wagner has 1,000 to 1,500 fighters in Mali and might soon deploy some to Burkina Faso (Niger's southwestern neighbor), the mercenary organization doesn't have forces on the ground in Niger at this point.
"Wagner is thought to be involved in some of the anti-Bazoum, anti-French and pro-Russian disinformation that has been going into Niger, though," Siegle added.
But terrorism researcher Colin P. Clarke has warned that Russia could look to take advantage of the situation in Niger.
Writing on Twitter on Thursday, Clarke said that "we should avoid overhyping the role of Russia in instigating coups in African nations, but we also need to be careful not to underestimate Moscow's ability to take advantage of what it views not as crises, but as opportunities to project influence."
Clarke later expanded on those thoughts in an email to Newsweek. He wrote that Western countries supporting the Economic Community of West African States, a political/economic union of 15 countries in West Africa that included Niger before the coup, and "Russia supporting Niger [and Burkina Faso and Mali, if they joined in] with muscle from the Wagner Group would escalate the situation significantly."
"Civilians would be the clear losers in such a situation, as conflict would push Nigeriens to flee both within the country and across borders," said Clarke, director of policy and research at the New York-based Soufan Group think tank. "And jihadist groups would be the obvious winners, using the turmoil to expand their reach within the Sahel, recruit new members, and gain control of larger swaths of territory.
"I do think the chances of this are rather remote, but they aren't zero. Still, at the end of the day, the U.S., Russia, China and France all stand to lose something if the entire Sahel tips into regional state failure."
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August 04, 2023 at 04:13AM
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Are U.S. and Russia Headed for Direct Conflict in Niger? - Newsweek
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