By Jessica Donati and Ange Aboa
DAKAR/ABIDJAN, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Ivory Coast wants the Trump administration to station U.S. spy planes in the country’s north to carry out cross-border operations targeting Al Qaeda-allied jihadists wreaking havoc across the Sahel, according to two senior Ivorian security officials who told Reuters they expected a decision from Washington next year.
One of the Ivorian sources, a senior counterterrorism official, said Abidjan and Washington agreed on regional security needs, and timing was the only issue that remained to be determined.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment, while the Pentagon said it wasn’t currently planning operations in Ivory Coast. The State Department declined to comment, but said: “We will actively continue to pursue our counterterrorism objectives where there is a nexus to U.S. interests.”
The Ivorian Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Washington lost access to its main base in West Africa last year, when Niger turned to Russia for security assistance and kicked U.S. forces out of a $100 million drone base. The base had provided crucial intelligence on groups allied with al Qaeda and Islamic State across the Sahel, where 3,885 deaths last year were attributed to terrorism, making up half the global total, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
WEST AFRICA IN FOCUS FOR TRUMP
The October kidnapping by suspected jihadists of an American pilot working for an evangelical Christian missionary agency in Niger’s capital highlighted the lack of U.S. intelligence in the region.
“We don’t have any assets to help with the recovery,” said Cameron Hudson, a former CIA and State Department official who now runs a private consultancy. “How would we do a recovery operation if we don’t have ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) helping us to understand where he is or the conditions he’s being held in?”
A key lawmaker is pushing for a larger U.S. focus on the region. Republican Senator Jim Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. “cannot overlook a growing danger – ISIS, JNIM and their affiliates tightening their grip across the Sahel and West Africa.”
President Donald Trump has also turned his attention to West Africa, threatening military action in Nigeria over what he says is a failure to prevent jihadist attacks on Christians. The top U.S. envoy to Africa, Jonathan Pratt, has said Washington was studying options to push Nigeria to better protect Christian communities. Nigeria says it works to protect religious freedom and that the country faces terrorism, not persecution of Christians, calling the security situation complex.
USA VS RUSSIA
After the U.S. was asked to leave Niger, former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration briefly redeployed two BE-350 surveillance planes to a base in Ivory Coast, which shares borders with Mali and Burkina Faso, to provide fly-over intelligence in the region, according to the Ivorian officials and a former senior U.S. official with direct knowledge, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The aircraft were pulled out around the time Biden left office in January, three former U.S. officials said. Two of the officials said this was partly because Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso refused to allow the U.S. to fly over their territory to gather intelligence, leaving the planes mostly sitting idle.
But there are signs U.S. relations with some of those countries could be thawing as their strategy of distancing themselves from Western allies and turning instead to Russia for military support appears to be failing.
Between 2020 and 2023, soldiers in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger carried out coups as they blamed their leaders backed by former colonial power France and Western allies for allowing Islamist militants to gain ground. However, violence fueled by a decade-long fight with Islamist groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State has since worsened.
Trump administration officials have started testing increased cooperation with Mali, which is battling Al Qaeda-allied Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). The group has kidnapped foreigners for ransom to finance its operations, and Reuters reported in October that a deal was reached to free two United Arab Emirates citizens for roughly $50 million.
White House counterterrorism official Rudolph Atallah traveled to Bamako, Mali’s capital, in July, telling local media the U.S. was interested in expanding business and security cooperation.
“That’s the beginnings of rebuilding a relationship,” said Peter Pham, a former U.S. envoy to the Sahel during the first Trump administration. “We have capabilities that, quite frankly, there were no substitutes to. These countries are learning that.”
Following the July visit, the U.S. provided intelligence that helped Mali strike an insurgent leader, a U.S. official and two former U.S. officials said.
(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Leslie Adler)
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