Intelligence: Airbase 201 In Africa

[Valin]

Strategy Page

June 29, 2019:

After five years of negotiations, followed by years of construction delays, the new American airbase in Niger has been completed. Called Airbase 201, it cost $110 million and is one of the most expensive U.S. Air Force foreign airbase construction projects even undertaken. The main purpose of the base is to improve surveillance and intel collection about Islamic terrorists in the region. That will be accomplished by basing UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) there along with some manned aircraft. Construction began in 2016 and was supposed to be completed by 2017. The project took two years longer than expected because the location, Agadez, is on the southern edge of the Sahara desert and that led to unexpected complications because of the harsh climate.

Some 600 American military personnel will be stationed at Airbase 201, most of them air force and including air traffic controllers and security personnel. Flight operations will begin later in 2019 because details of how the UAVs will operate in an area where there is some commercial air traffic are still not completely worked out. That’s another unexpected delay. Then there are the additional security. That last item became more of a concern since 2016 as there are now two ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) “provinces” operating in this part of Africa. In western Niger and neighboring Mali there is ISGS (Islamic State in Greater Sahara) that is currently active in more of Mali and much of Niger. The other, larger, ISIL group is ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province), this ISIL group is one of two factions of Nigerian Islamic terror group Boko Haram. ISWAP personnel are mostly in northeastern Nigeria as well as smaller numbers in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. ISGS and ISWAP do not appear to work together except when it comes to Internet media activities, where ISWAP will mention ISGS accomplishments. It is now believed both these ISIL groups will see Airbase 201 as a valuable target to go after.

Agadez is 730 kilometers northeast of the Niger capital (Niamey). Niger agreed to allow the construction of Airbase 201 in 2014, a year after American UAVs began operation from a Niger military base next to the Niamey airport. The Agadez base had to be built largely from scratch because, unlike Niamey, Agadez does not have a large airport or much in the way of support for lots of aircraft operations. Agadez is closer to Chad, southern Libya and Nigeria, where American aerial surveillance is more in demand by the local governments. Airbase 201 will also support armed UAVs and Niger wants some say in when and where those armed UAV operations will take place. Niger became more interested in having armed UAV operations available after a late 2017 clash in Niger left four American Special Forces operators and five Niger trainees dead when their 35 man training operation was ambushed by over fifty ISGS gunmen in western Niger. Aerial surveillance over that training mission would have spotted the ISGS force. The U.S. will continue to supply intelligence obtained by the Airbase 201-based UAVs with Niger and other nations in the area that have intelligence sharing agreements.

Details of that intel sharing are also not completed.

(Snip)

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Back in The Day we had an acronym IHTFP...I Have Truly Found Paradise.

 

or I Hate This F...... Place! :-)