Niger's junta withdraws from Lake Chad anti-Islamist force
Source: The Guardian
Niger’s junta withdraws from Lake Chad anti-Islamist force
Coalition of former allies Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria fought armed insurgents including Boko Haram
Eromo Egbejule in Lagos and news agencies
Tue 1 Apr 2025 08.12 BST
Last modified on Tue 1 Apr 2025 09.58 BST
Niger’s ruling junta has quit a regional force fighting armed Islamist groups in west Africa’s Lake Chad area, cementing an acrimonious split from former allies in the region.
The decision to exit the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) was announced in a bulletin on state television over the weekend. The move “reflects a stated intent to reinforce security for oil sites”, the bulletin stated, without providing further details.
The MNJTF was formed in 2015 by Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria in the wake of increasing jihadist attacks across their territories. At its peak, it had an estimated 10,000 troops and fought many armed groups, especially Boko Haram and its offshoots. But any serious progress has been hampered or even undone by poor collaboration and equipping, analysts say.
“The force was never that effective, said Ulf Laessing, the Bamako-based director of the Sahel programme at Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German thinktank. Its decline, he added, was “good news for jihadists and it is bad news for villagers on the lake side, fishers or farmers who just want to go about their business but who will now get less military support”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/01/niger-junta-withdraws-from-lake-chad-anti-islamist-force