West Central Africa, Niger coup.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is this today? Is Victoria Coats. She was a Deputy National Security Advisor in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, and she’s an expert in Middle East Africa and in so many things going on in Africa in the last few weeks that we American people need an update. Victoria tell us there’s so many things going on in Africa. The

0:27 Wagoner Group has been accused of being there and raising the Russian flag. And where do you want to.

0:34 Speaker 2 Start, Well, I think maybe with a quick quick geography lesson on radio John. It’s hard to have a map, but if your listeners can just think about the western Sahell, which is the part of Africa down underneath basically Morocco and Libya. So you’re talking about countries like Chad and Borkino, Fosso.

0:53 But most important Lady Jail, where we have had a coup over the last couple of days. The are they democratically elected president has been deposed, he’s under house arrest, he’s still making calls to world leaders, doesn’t seem to be in any physical danger, but the military has taken over with as you say, the support of the Wagner Group,

1:15 which are very active in Libya. And then down into newshare as well. So this is this is a real problem anywhere you have you know, the Wagner Group making making common cause with a local military which has traditionally been closely aligned with the United States. In France, that’s just not very good for the United States. So ger

1:36 may not be familiar to a lot of folks, but it’s an important country for the fight against terrorism, which is really metastasized in that region. And it really looks to me like we’re losing a very important foothold.

1:50 Speaker 1 And when did all this stock I mean the American people, we’re hearing about this in the last month or so. Uh, and then the Wagner Group’s name came up about two weeks ago, give us a time timeline.

2:09 Speaker 2 Well. Unfortunately, political instability in this region is pretty endemic. Both for Kina, Faso and chad Uh and then Molli as well have had KuPS in recent years. In Molli in particular has become a real stronghold for Wagner, which, as I said, is also very active in Libya, giving us all sorts of problems there. So this is kind

2:31 of a burgeoning problem really since since the fall of Kadafi UH in Libya and then the attendant instability in the region. You know, our good ally Morocco is one of the key partners in all of this and can do a lot along with Egypt to start to bring some stability uh to the region. But it’s something we’re

2:52 going to have to work with them very carefully, uh to achieve. And unfortunately, the Secretary of State actually paid I believe the first visit by an American Secretary of State, this would be Secretary of Blincoln just this past March to Nijer to express our great support for our support for its democratic institutions. And to have this happen just

3:18 three months after Secretary Blincoln came through, I think demonstrates how how weak our physician is right now.

3:27 Speaker 1 Understood, Uh, are people dying or is it just uh, what’s what’s happening happening? Yeah?

3:36 Speaker 2 Yeah, I like Sudan in Eastern Africa, where the conflict is quite bloody and it’s an armed conflict between two groups in Sudan, and we have had a significant loss of life. Unlike that, the coup in seems to be the date relatively bloodless. I’m sure there’s there’s some sporadic violence, but not a ton. But the key asset that we

4:00 have to keep an eye on is we’ve built a drone base in niche Are that we are using in conjunction with the French for very serious counter terrorism operations. It’s our eyes and ears.

4:11 Speaker 1 In the region.

4:12 Speaker 2 And you know, a lot of folks are now very familiar with the capabilities we had in Afghanistan out of the Bagram Air Base, which we have lost through the quite disastrous surrender of Afghanistan exactly two years ago, and the kind of vulnerabilities that create. I think the main concern here is that if we cannot maintain this drone base,

4:36 given that we’ve lost our assets in other countries like Malli, we will are going to be literally flying behind in the western sahell and that’s not a good thing for the American people, understood.

4:49 Speaker 1 Anything else you want to tell the American people, we have another thirty seconds or so left.

4:54 Speaker 2 I think the one other thing to keep in the back of your mind is is theirs the seventh largest producer uranium in the world and a major producer for France, particularly for their civil nuclear program. So France should have a real strong interest here. I think they should probably be taking the lead, but there are a lot of

5:11 reasons that Americans should also be interested Understed.

5:16 Speaker 1 Thank you so much for Victoria, coach, and thank you keep your eyes on it and let us know when there’s another report that the American people should know about sounds good.

5:28 Speaker 2 Thank you, John, Thank you