U.S. forces are sitting on powder kegs in West Africa. If Washington soon resumes business as usual, more hostile resistance is likely.
None of this is good news. Thirty years ago, 18 U.S. soldiers died and were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in what’s known as the Black Hawk Down incident. Especially with France now pulling all forces out of Niger, the unsettling possibility of that happening again runs high today if U.S. troops remain in West Africa. Anti-Western sentiment and violence are on the rise in the region. U.S. troops will likely get caught in the crossfire, as in Somalia.
U.S. special forces train Nigerian forces in Agadez, Niger, on April 12, 2018. Niger has been a centerpiece of American efforts to combat surging Islamist militancy in the Sahel region for a decade. And these operations are about to get a lot more dangerous for U.S. soldiers when they resume. The recent surge in military coups in West Africa has fueled jihadist recruitment and violence. Militant Islamist attacks have increased 70% in Mali since a 2020 coup there. In Burkina-Faso, attacks are up by 30% since a pair of coups last year. Niger is headed in the same direction.
In the past, the U.S. public accepted casualties like these in West Africa as necessary to fight the global war on terror. When four commandos died in an ambush near Tongo Tongo, Niger, in 2017, the event made headlines but quickly faded from public view. At the time, the Islamic State militia was surging in strength, and polls showed deep public concern about terrorism.
Things are different today. Rather than terrorism, China and Russia now dominate national attention. With no major international terrorist strike on U.S. or European soil since 2017, terrorism has faded from public view. Not surprisingly, there is also no public attention today to West African jihadists since terrorist groups there have never attempted or intended to attack the United States.
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