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The Pentagon has announced that the US will remove some soldiers from Chad, only days after agreeing to withdraw personnel from neighboring Niger.
The United States has about 100 troops stationed in Chad as part of its plan to tackle radicalism in West Africa.
“USAFRICOM is currently planning to reposition some US military forces from Chad, a portion of which were already scheduled to depart,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder stated at a news conference on Thursday, referring to the US Africa Command unit.
“This is a temporary step as part of an ongoing review of our security cooperation, which will resume after Chad’s May 6 presidential election.”
According to a letter submitted to the transitional government and seen by AFP, Chad’s air force chief directed the US military to suspend operations at an air facility near the capital N’Djamena earlier this month.
He stated that he had asked the US military to give paperwork “justifying its presence at the Adji Kossei Air Base” but had not received any.
US Marines at the Adji Kossei military camp train anti-terrorism special forces as well as an elite Chadian army unit to combat the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram.
Neighbouring Niger is also a key component in the US and French plan to combat extremists in the region.
However, Niger’s governing military junta announced in March that it was terminating a military cooperation deal with Washington, claiming it was imposed and the US soldier presence was unconstitutional.
Washington initiated conversations with Niger this week about evacuating the country’s more than 1,000 US personnel, as well as a $100 million American drone base.
Ryder stated this week that the US will “continue to explore options on how we can ensure that we’re able to continue to address potential terrorist threats” in the aftermath of the pullout from Niger.
General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno took over the presidency of Chad in a 2021 coup following the death of his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled the Sahel country with an iron fist for more than three decades.
He announced his candidacy in March for the 2017 presidential election, which has seen opposition candidates barred from running and his major competitor Yaya Dillo Djerou killed in an army raid on his party headquarters.
