Niamey, Niger—West African military chiefs are set to meet Thursday in Ghana to coordinate a possible intervention aimed at reversing Niger’s coup.
Alarmed by a cascade of takeovers in the region, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has decided to create a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger.
The meeting of the top brass on Thursday and Friday comes after fresh violence in the insurgent-hit country, with jihadists killing at least 17 soldiers in an ambush.
An army detachment was “the victim of a terrorist ambush near the town of Koutougou” in the Tillaberi region near Burkina Faso on Tuesday, Niger’s defense ministry said.
Twenty more soldiers were wounded, six seriously, in the heaviest losses since the July 26 coup.
Jihadist insurgencies have gripped Africa’s Sahel region for more than a decade, breaking out in northern Mali in 2012 before spreading to neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.
The “three borders” area between the countries is regularly the scene of attacks by rebels affiliated with the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.
The unrest across the region has killed thousands of troops, police officers and civilians, and forced millions to flee their homes.
Anger at the bloodshed has fueled military coups in all three countries since 2020, with Niger the latest to fall when its elected president Mohamed Bazoum was ousted on July 26.
The generals who have detained Bazoum said “the deteriorating security situation” sparked the coup. AFP
Analysts say an intervention to oust the coup’s leaders would be militarily and politically risky, and the bloc has said it prefers a diplomatic outcome.
ECOWAS issued a statement Tuesday “strongly condemning” the latest attack, urging the military “to restore constitutional order in Niger to be able to focus (its) attention on security… weaker since the attempted coup d’etat.” AFP