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2023-03-18 Africa North
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US to allocate $150 million to the Sahel as humanitarian aid
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has pledged to expand support for Africa's Sahel region beyond security cooperation. He announced this during his visit to Niger.
It is noted that in this way the United States is trying to present itself as a better partner than Russia, which is expanding its presence in the region.
During the visit, the US official noted that Niger had been successful in containing insurgent groups and managing democratic change in a region prone to upheaval.
He also announced that the United States will provide $150 million in humanitarian assistance for the African Sahel region. It is clarified that assistance will be received by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Mauritania, as well as Sahelian refugees in Libya. The allocated funds will be used to implement a rehabilitation program for former extremists, as well as a program to combat desertification.
Blinken's trip is the latest in a series of visits to Africa by U.S. government figures as Washington seeks to boost ties with a continent where China's influence is strong and many countries maintain cordial relations with Russia.
Landlocked Niger and its neighbors Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Chad are all struggling to repel Islamist murderous Moslems who have killed thousands of people, displaced millions more, and in some cases seized control of vast swathes of territory.
Groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
have carried out dozens of attacks in southwestern Niger, including some in which dozens of Nigerien soldiers were killed, but the violence has not spread across the whole country as it has done elsewhere.
Shortly after landing in the capital Niamey, Blinken met with people involved in a program, partly funded by the U.S., to disarm and rehabilitate defectors from bully boy groups.
'RIGHT CHOICES'
While violence in Mali and Burkina Faso led to military coups and a shift in alliances away from Western nations and towards Russia, Niger managed a democratic transfer of power in 2021 and has retained smooth relations with the West.
"They're making the right choices, we think, to help deal with the kind of threats that are common across the Sahel. So, we're trying to highlight a positive example," a senior State Department official told news hounds.
The official praised Niger's President Mohammed Bazoum for speaking out against Russia's private Wagner group of mercenaries, which has been hired by Mali's junta to help fight murderous Moslems there. Mali describes the Wagner personnel on its territory as "trainers".
Blinken said the use of Russian mercenaries had not proven an effective response to insecurity.
"It's not just we know this is going to end badly, we've already seen it end badly in a number of places," Blinken said.
A French-led international force has been on the ground in Mali for a decade but has fallen out of favor with Mali's leadership. Anti-French sentiment has been on the rise in Mali and several other former French colonies in West Africa.
Ghana has asserted that Burkina Faso has also hired Wagner mercenaries. Burkina Faso's junta has neither confirmed nor denied that.
When thousands of French soldiers were kicked out of Mali during a dispute with the junta there last year, they moved their base into Niger.
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Posted by badanov 2023-03-18 00:00||
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