The U.S troop withdrawal from Niger, as demanded by the West African country’s military regime, will be completed in early August.
“The withdrawal is going well,” US commander for Africa General Kenneth Ekman told journalists in Abidjan on Wednesday.
“It is ahead of schedule and this is because of the excellent coordination that we have had with our Nigerien military counterparts,” said Ekman, who heads up the US Africa Command Africom.
“I expect that we will be complete with the withdrawal by early August, well ahead of the 15 September mutually agreed deadline,”
The United States pulled out of a base in the Niger capital Niamey in early July, but another 200 US soldiers remain at the Agadez drone base in the north of the country.
US troops were part of an international effort to suppress jihadists forces that regularly strike across the region.
But the Niger military leaders who seized power in a coup a year ago in March told US and French forces to quit the country.
