Mali, Burkina Faso sends War Planes to Niger following ECOWAS threat

Following the Economic Community of West Africa’s(ECOWAS) potential armed intervention to restore democracy in Niger Republic, Burkina Faso and Mali have sent warplanes to the country.

The deployment of warplanes within Niger’s borders and joint support efforts for Niger by Mali and Burkina Faso were both reported by Niger television on Friday.

It stated that Mali and Burkina Faso “turned their commitments into concrete action” by deploying warplanes to defend against any attack on Niger, noting the aircraft were Super Tucano fighter jets.

A major uranium producer and ally of the West in the struggle against an Islamist insurgency, President Mohamed Bazoum of Niger was imprisoned on June 26 and the elected government was overthrown.

The military junta in Niger was given a week to reinstate Bazoum as president after ECOWAS, led by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, decided to impose sanctions on the country’s military personnel.

A “standby force” to restore elected Bazoum was authorized by West African leaders who met on August 10 after the one-week deadline had passed.

The coup plotters had declared war on foreign intervention and called ECOWAS’s bluff.

The ECOWAS Defense Chiefs were then given the order to mobilize the region’s force for action to reinstate civil rule in Niger, noting that it would invade the nation on “D-Day.”

The military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso, however, called ECOWAS’s bluff and warned that an armed intervention in Niger would result in retaliation.

According to the television station, the military chiefs of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger met on Friday in Niamey, the nation’s capital, to decide on “concrete measures” in the event that ECOWAS decides to “escalate a war.”