{"id":240622,"date":"2023-07-31T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=240622"},"modified":"2023-07-31T04:45:52","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T03:45:52","slug":"niger-coup-leader-joins-long-line-of-u-s-trained-mutineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/07\/niger-coup-leader-joins-long-line-of-u-s-trained-mutineers\/","title":{"rendered":"Niger Coup Leader Joins Long Line of U.S.-trained Mutineers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Lt. Gen. Johnathan Braga, U.S. Army Special Operations commander, meets with Brig. Gen. Moussa Barmou, Niger Special Operations Forces commander, at Air Base 101, in Niger, on June 12, 2023.
Photo: Staff Sgt. Amy Younger\/US Air Force<\/p><\/div>\n

Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, helped oust Niger\u2019s democratically elected president. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

27 Jul 2023<\/em> – Brig. gen. Moussa salaou barmou<\/span>, the chief of Niger\u2019s Special Operations Forces and one of the leaders of the unfolding coup in Niger, was trained by the U.S. military, The Intercept has confirmed. U.S.-trained military officers have taken part in 11 coups in West Africa since 2008.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe have had a very long relationship with the United States,\u201d Barmou<\/a> said in 2021<\/a>. \u201cBeing able to work together in this capacity is very good for Niger.\u201d Just last month, Barmou met with Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga<\/a>, the head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, at Air Base 201, a drone base in the Nigerian city of Agadez that serves as the lynchpin of an archipelago of U.S. outposts in West Africa.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Barmou, who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the National Defense University in Washington, joined a junta that ousted Mohamed Bazoum, Niger\u2019s democratically elected president, according to Nigerien sources and a U.S. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

Barmou did not return phone calls and text messages from The Intercept.<\/p>\n

A U.S. official tracking the coup, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed Barmou\u2019s relationship with the U.S. military and said he was probably not alone. \u201cI\u2019m sure we will find out that others have been partners, have been involved in U.S. engagements,\u201d he said of other members of the junta, noting that U.S. government agencies were looking into the matter.<\/p>\n

U.S.-trained officers have conducted in at least six coups in\u00a0neighboring Burkina Faso<\/a>\u00a0and Mali<\/a>\u00a0since 2012. They have also been involved in recent takeovers in Gambia (2014), Guinea (2021), Mauritania (2008), and Niger (2023).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe train to standards \u2014 the laws of war and democratic standards,\u201d said the U.S. official. \u201cThese are foreign military personnel. We can\u2019t control what they do. We have no way to stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of Niger\u2019s Presidential Guard surrounded the president\u2019s palace in Niamey on Wednesday and took Bazoum hostage. Bazoum and his family were \u201cdoing well,\u201d the Nigerien presidency\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Later, the account repeated<\/a> what Bazoum had posted on his personal page<\/a>: \u201cThe hard-won achievements will be safeguarded. All Nigeriens who love democracy and freedom will see to it.\u201d Neither account has posted anything further in the last 12 hours.<\/p>\n

Calling themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, Barmou and eight other high-ranking officers delivered a statement on Nigerien state television shortly after detaining Bazoum. The \u201cdefense and security forces\u201d had \u201cdecided to put an end to the regime \u2026 due to the deteriorating security situation and bad governance,\u201d according to their spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Since 2012, U.S. taxpayers have spent\u00a0more than $500 million in<\/a> Niger,\u00a0making it one of the largest security assistance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Across the continent, the State Department counted just\u00a0nine terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003<\/a>, compared with 2,737 last year in Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger alone, according to a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a U.S. Defense Department research institution.<\/p>\n

U.S. troops train, advise, and assist their Nigerien counterparts and have fought and even died there. Over the last decade, the number of U.S. military personnel deployed to Niger has jumped from just\u00a0100<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a01,016<\/a>. Niger has also seen a\u00a0proliferation of U.S. outposts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barmou and Braga met last month to \u201cdiscuss anti-terrorism policy and tactics throughout the region,\u201d according to a military news release<\/a>. The Pentagon says that the U.S. partnership with Niger\u2019s army, especially its commandos, is key to countering militants.<\/p>\n

Defense Department agencies partner with the Nigerien Army and Special Operators to fight violent extremism throughout Northwest Africa, but experts say the overwhelming focus on counterterrorism is part of the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major issues fueling conflict in Niger and the Sahel are not military in nature \u2014 they stem from people\u2019s frustration with poverty, the legacy of colonialism, elite corruption, and political and ethnic tensions and injustices. Yet rather than address these issues, the U.S. government has prioritized sending weapons and funding and training the region\u2019s militaries to wage their own wars on terror,\u201d said Stephanie Savell, co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, and an expert on U.S. military efforts in West Africa. \u201cOne of the hugely negative consequences has been to empower the region\u2019s security forces at the expense of other government institutions, and this is surely one factor in the slate of coups we\u2019ve seen in Niger, Burkina Faso, and elsewhere in\u00a0recent\u00a0years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nigerien Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to The Intercept\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0The U.S. State Department also did not reply to The Intercept\u2019s requests for information prior to publication.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – theintercept.com<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27 Jul 2023 – Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, helped oust Niger\u2019s democratically elected president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":240623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[237,393,1105,3111,112,1574,70],"class_list":["post-240622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-africa","tag-coup","tag-military-industrial-complex","tag-niger","tag-pentagon","tag-school-of-the-americas","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240625,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240622\/revisions\/240625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}