The government of Niger has given the Pentagon the greenlight to set up a new and second drone base in the West African nation – in one of the most remote places along an ancient caravan crossroads in the middle of the Sahara, at the mud-walled desert city of Agadez.
This base, its third in the region, will allow the US military to fly unarmed drones along a desert corridor that connects northern Mali and southern Libya which allows the drones to zero on a key route for arms traffickers, drug smugglers and Islamist fighters migrating across the Sahara, according to a report by online news portal Stuff in New Zealand based on sources from Nigerian and US officials.
This move allows the Pentagon “track Islamist fighters who have destabilized parts of North and West Africa. It also advances a little-publicized US strategy to tackle counter-terrorism threats alongside France, the former colonial power in that part of the continent,” according to Stuff.
A document from the US Department of Justice dated July 16, 2010 was released to justify US drone killings.
The picture above reveals the American and French military presence in the Sahara region, courtesy of The Washington Post.