The U.S. spent years building a $110 million drone base in Niger -- a project beset by scores of setbacks, delays, and cost increases. Now, it may be abandoned along with U.S. assistance to French forces battling militants in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. nyti.ms/2ZuClwd
It's worth mentioning that the U.S. has a 10-year agreement, which ends in 2024, for use of the base in Agadez, Niger. If it's fully exercised, that $110 million drone base will actually cost about $280 million theintercept.com/2018/08/21/us-…
People might also not realize just how many military efforts the U.S. has been running in Africa of late. Earlier this year, @SeanDNaylor and I tallied 36 operations and activities that were (or were until recently) ongoing in Africa news.yahoo.com/revealed-the-u…
@SeanDNaylor Plus, that outpost at Agadez, Niger is just one of 34 bases (mostly clustered in the north and west as well as the Horn of Africa) that have recently been used by U.S. troops conducting missions across the Africa continent theintercept.com/2018/12/01/u-s…
@SeanDNaylor And, in case you were wondering, U.S. forces saw combat in at least 13 African countries between 2013 and 2017, according to retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who served at U.S. Africa Command from 2013 to 2015 and then headed Special Operations Command Africa until 2017
Those countries, according to Bolduc, were Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan and Tunisia news.yahoo.com/revealed-the-u…
And here are the locations of the U.S. bases across Africa that have been used in recent years: 
If you're wondering what all those U.S. bases are used for -- and the aims of those code-named operations -- they cover a variety of different military missions, ranging from psychological operations to counter-terrorism.
Eight of 36 the named activities are so-called 127e ("127-echo") programs, named for the budgetary authority that allows U.S. special operations forces to use certain host-nation military units as surrogates in counter-terrorism missions.
Used extensively across Africa, 127e programs can be run either by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the secretive organization that controls the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, the Army’s Delta Force and other special mission units, or by “theater special operations forces.”
