US military to resume talks with Chad on keeping troops after 6 May election

Talks between the US military and Chad’s government aiming to revise the security partnership agreement between both countries are set to begin within a month, just as US officials are negotiating the withdrawal of American troops from neighboring Niger after the country’s military junta ended a longstanding pact.

The US military has withdrawn its about 100 troops from a French military base in Chad after the country’s interim government last month questioned the legality of their operations there and demanded they leave, Pentagon confirmed on May 1. This followed a decision by Niger’s junta-led government to order all US troops out of the country and replace them with Russian military personnel.

Niger and Chad are the latest Sahel countries to eject Western forces, dealing a blow to US military operations in the Sahel, a vast region where groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group operate.

But the US military plans to return to Chad within a month for talks, US Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, the commander of US Africa Command, assured, aiming “to see in what ways, and what they need, to be able to build further in their security construct and also against terrorism.” Langley added that the withdrawal of US troops from Chad was expected to be temporary “as part of an ongoing review of our security cooperation, which will resume after Chad’s 6 May presidential election,” whereby N’Djamena had communicated to Washington that it wanted to continue the security partnership.

General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, the country’s interim leader, is reportedly the favorite to win the presidential election after the junta violently repressed much of the opposition.