{"id":47735,"date":"2023-09-14T20:37:43","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T20:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2023\/09\/14\/surveillance-flights-not-counterterrorism-ops-restarted-in-niger\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:00:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:00:58","slug":"surveillance-flights-not-counterterrorism-ops-restarted-in-niger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2023\/09\/14\/surveillance-flights-not-counterterrorism-ops-restarted-in-niger\/","title":{"rendered":"Surveillance flights, not counterterrorism ops, restarted in Niger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Pentagon said Thursday that it has not restarted counterterrorism operations in Niger, a day after the head of U.S. airpower for Europe and Africa said those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-air-force\/2023\/09\/13\/us-military-resumes-counterterrorism-missions-out-of-niger-bases\/\" target=\"_blank\">flights had resumed.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gen. James Hecker, responding to a question from The Associated Press at a security conference Wednesday, said the U.S. military has been able to resume some manned aircraft and drone counterterrorism operations in Niger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Pentagon issued a statement Thursday saying those missions are only for protecting U.S. forces and not the more sensitive, and broader, counterterrorism operations U.S. forces have successfully run with the Nigerien military in the past, adding \u201cstories to the contrary are false.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are just flying ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) in order to monitor for any threats,\u201d Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said at a press briefing Thursday. \u201cWe are flying ISR for force protection purposes and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Niger\u2019s president was ousted in late July by a military junta. In the weeks since, the approximately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2023\/09\/08\/us-moves-troops-and-equipment-within-niger-as-precautionary-measure\/\" target=\"_blank\">1,100 U.S. forces deployed<\/a> there have been confined inside their military bases. News that some flights had resumed was seen as a good sign that State Department diplomatic efforts with the junta were improving security on the ground. For weeks the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/niger-tchiani-coup-ecowas-niamey-ff851e9f218018ffe4fe80e782e76c1b\" target=\"_blank\">political uncertainty<\/a> following the coup and the unstable security situation that followed has led to the U.S. consolidating some of its forces at a base farther from Niamey, Niger\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a clarifying statement Thursday, the spokesman for air forces in Africa, Col. Robert Firman, said that in his Wednesday remarks, Hecker was just referring to the air component perspective and was not addressing the overall counterterrorism program in Niger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a preview provided by Hecker\u2019s staff of an Atlantic Council taped program set to air Friday, he further elaborated on the efforts on the ground in Niger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe last thing we want to have happen is, we don\u2019t want a shooting war over there. And the good news is we\u2019ve been vastly successful at doing so with the help of the State Department,\u201d Hecker said. \u201cThe airspace is starting to slowly come back up. And we\u2019re able to do some of our surveillance operations primarily for force protection in the area. So that\u2019s helping us up quite a bit to make sure that we\u2019re comfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd all the intelligence shows right now that the risk to to our forces is fairly low. But we need to make sure that if something happens, we\u2019re ready to go. And we\u2019re in a good position now that they\u2019re starting to allow us to use some of our surveillance for force protection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The U.S. has made Niger its main regional outpost for wide-ranging patrols by armed drones, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/eu-niger-gabon-military-coup-wagner-africa-97cfb8e683bf083a68e34f9fa2810bb8\" target=\"_blank\">training of host nation forces<\/a> and other counterterrorism efforts against Islamic extremist movements that over the years have seized territory, massacred civilians and battled foreign armies. The bases are a critical part of America\u2019s overall counterterrorism efforts in West Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pentagon says it has not restarted counterterrorism operations in Niger, a day after Air Force Gen. James Hecker said those flights had resumed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":108351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,160,11,47,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3493],"class_list":["post-47735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-daily-news-roundup","category-global","category-mideast-africa","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"UPOS2COYHVFIFO777ILYAZJJTY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2023\/09\/14\/surveillance-flights-not-counterterrorism-ops-restarted-in-niger\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Surveillance flights, not counterterrorism ops, restarted in Niger - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Pentagon says it has not restarted counterterrorism operations in Niger, a day after Air Force Gen. 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