Niger Rapid Intervention Company
The Niger Rapid Intervention Company is a 130 man special forces unit trained by the United States Military to conduct counter-terrorist operations in 2003-2006 in Niger. The NRIC is a unit of the Nigerien Armed Forces, and is one of a number of small forces trained for African nations as part of the Pan Sahel Initiative (2002-2004) and Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative.
In August 2007 the Niger Movement for Justice, MNJ, a Tuareg based insurgence group, claimed defections from the army had increased their numbers to over 2000 fighters. Some sources claim that defections included the entire Niger Rapid Intervention Company. Western journalists have also claimed that the NRIC was previously drafted into use as security for the French conglomerate Areva NC's Uranium mines in Arlit, northern Niger. [1] Still other sources have claimed that it (and the rebel movement) had been created by the government itself in order to ratchet up tension in the region and thereby secure Western military aid. [2] Subsequent comuniques by the MNJ have claimed that their forces include a unit titled TIR (Troupes d’Intervention Rapide). These claims have never been independently verified. [3]
Notes
- ↑ NIGER: Five killed as army clashes with Tuaregs in desert north. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN): 7 October 2004.
American Forces Train Nigerien Troops: American Forces Press Service, 10 March 2006. EUCOM-based troops training Mali, Mauritania militaries for border patrols. Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes European edition, Wednesday, March 17, 2004.
U.S. Special Ops troops preparing to train foreign soldiers in Africa. Charlie Coon, Stars and Stripes European edition, Sunday, May 15, 2005.
Some of a number of US Military articles detailing such continued training.
- See: Pan Sahel Initiative (2002-2004) and Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative (2005-).
- ↑ Fake Terror and Instability in North Africa. Sam Urquhart, Dissident Voice: 5 July 2007.
For background on the US involvement in the 2004 Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat pursuit see: Pursuing Terrorists in the Great Desert. The U.S. Military's $500 Million Gamble to Prevent the Next Afghanistan, by Raffi Khatchadourian, Village Voice, January 31st, 2006. - ↑ MNJ Communique 11 November, 2007.
References
- Robert D. Kaplan. America's African Rifles, the Atlantic Monthly. April, 2005.
- Colin Thomas-Jensen and Maggie Fick. Foreign Assistance Follies in Niger. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), September 4th, 2007.
- Craig S. Smith. U.S. Training African Forces to Uproot Terrorists. The New York Times, May 11, 2004.