Bloc backs off on military action as Niger’s coup leaders remain defiant

A Sunday deadline by Niger’s West African neighbors to intervene militarily if the recent army-led coup was not reversed appeared to pass without action even though the country’s democratically elected president remains a prisoner of his generals in Niamey.

The ECOWAS group of regional states was still discussing its options, but the military threat lost much of its force when lawmakers from regional power Nigeria, the bloc’s current chair, came out over the weekend urging more diplomacy and exploring other options besides the use of force.

With some significant holdouts, the ECOWAS bloc threatened to intervene militarily to restore Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, who has been held in detention since the July 26 coup led by the head of his own presidential guard, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani.

Failure to act on its own deadline could prove a major blow to the credibility of the regional group.

Gen. Tchiani has declared himself head of state and refused on Friday even to meet with an ECOWAS delegation that traveled to Niamey to discuss the crisis.

The U.S. government, which has deployed some 1,100 troops to Niger and operates a key regional drone monitoring base there, is among a large number of outside countries that have condemned the coup and called for Mr. Bazoum’s immediate restoration to power.

Niger, whose population of 25 million is one of the world’s poorest, is considered a key player in regional counterterrorism efforts to contain Islamic State and other violent jihadist groups that have been increasingly active in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years.

The Biden administration has also strongly backed Mr. Bazoum after he took office in a rare peaceful, democratic transfer of power two years ago.

But Russia, whose semi-official mercenary Wagner Group has been active in the region and has contracted for work with military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso, on Sunday came out against foreign intervention to overturn Gen. Tchiani’s coup.

“Russia views events in these countries as [Niger’s] internal affair and Russia does not interfere in these processes,” Russian diplomat Oleg Ozerov, head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, told Radio Rossiyi, according to the official Tass news service.

“We do not think that meddling into Niger’s affairs now can help out in any way. On the contrary, it may be counterproductive,” he said.

With tensions rising in Niamey against former colonial power France, the new military rulers have reportedly appealed to the Wagner Group to help provide security.

The 63-year-old Mr. Bazoum, in an op-ed in The Washington Post over the weekend, warned that terror groups and Russia would take advantage of the unlawful ouster of his government.

With an open invitation from the coup plotters and their regional allies, the entire central Sahel region could fall to Russian influence via the Wagner Group, whose brutal terrorism has been on full display in Ukraine,” he warned.

ECOWAS officials meeting last week gave the coup leaders until Sunday to return to civilian rule, adopting a plan of military intervention if they failed. The bloc has already imposed strong economic sanctions on Niger, and the U.S. has also suspended several economic and security aid programs.

But both Mali and Burkina Faso have come out in support of Gen. Tchiani, and both Algeria and Chad — which are not part of the regional bloc — said they oppose the use of force in the crisis.

France has organized a major evacuation mission for European nationals inside Niger, and the State Department said last week it had chartered a plane to evacuate non-essential personnel and American citizens who wanted to leave the country.

Coup leaders have also organized several street rallies of supporters, railing against France and condemning talk of outside military intervention.

The Associated Press reported that hundreds of young government supporters were out on the streets of Niamey on Sunday in the hours before the ECOWAS deadline, stopping cars to look for weapons and echoing government warnings about possible foreign infiltration and spies.

U.S. officials and private analysts say the Niger coup could be a major new blow to democratic rule in a violent, unstable region that has seen considerable backsliding. The military takeover in Niger marks the seventh such coup in West and Central Africa just in the last three years.