Pentagon acknowledges drone flight restrictions in Niger

American UAV missions, according to officials, will only involve surveillance and reconnaissance.

According to the US military, armed “counterterrorism” missions mostly stayed on hold in the wake of a recent coup in the African nation of Niger, therefore drone flights there will only be used for intelligence gathering.

A day after a top US general claimed such missions had resumed, deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh was questioned about whether Washington was still involved in “kinetic operations” in Niger.

The press secretary responded, “That’s a great question, but that does just get into some more in-depth, greater questions on our operational security, and for that as well as for the protection of our members of the military that are in Niger, all I can say right now is that we have not restarted counter-terrorism operations. We are merely conducting ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) flights to keep an eye out for dangers.

Gen. James Hecker stated at a security conference in Maryland on Wednesday that US forces stationed in Niger were “doing a large amount of missions that [they] were doing before.” Hecker added that the military had resumed some manned aircraft and drone flights in the nation after a temporary halt caused by a military coup there in July.

According to him, as quoted by the Associated Press, “for a while, we weren’t doing any missions on the bases, they pretty much closed down the airfields.”

Also apparently confirming that the United States was returning to Niger, Defence Department press secretary Patrick Ryder said the missions were simply being flown to “monitor for threats for the purposes of force protection.”

Just days after seizing control of the government, Niamey’s new military authorities declared last week that they had reopened Nigerien airspace to all commercial aircraft, which had been shut down since early August. The state-run Voice of America news outlet was informed by a US military official that commercial aircraft access had not “normalised” drone flight frequencies.

In response to a question regarding the frequency of US drone operations in Niger, Singh refused to “get into timelines and how frequently they’re flying,” instead stating that their sole purpose was to “monitor any threats to our troops and are just there for force protection.” She continued by saying that the Pentagon had “sought the appropriate authorities” from the military junta in Niger, but she would not go into any detail regarding US coordination with the local authorities.