West African military leaders will gather in Ghana on Thursday to plan a possible intervention to overthrow Niger’s coup.
Concerned about a regional takeover cascade, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has agreed to establish a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger.
The top brass gathering on Thursday and Friday comes after more militant carnage in the country, with terrorists murdering at least 17 soldiers in an ambush.
According to Niger’s defense ministry, an army detachment was “the victim of a terrorist ambush near the town of Koutougou” in the Tillaberi region near Burkina Faso on Tuesday.
Twenty more soldiers were injured, six of them badly, in the most devastating casualties since the July 26 coup.
Jihadist insurgencies have engulfed Africa’s Sahel area for almost a decade, beginning in northern Mali in 2012 and expanding to neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.
The “three borders” area between the countries is frequently the target of attacks by Islamic State and Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants.
Thousands of troops, police officials, and civilians have been slain in the region’s instability, and millions have been forced to abandon their homes.
Anger at the bloodshed has fueled military coups in all three countries since 2020, with Niger being the most recent to collapse, with its elected President Mohamed Bazoum deposed on July 26.
The generals who detained Bazoum said that the coup was prompted by a “deteriorating security situation.”
