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 "One person could come here and kill us all!" Diffa's prefect,
Inoussa Saouna, told 75 village leaders assembled along with
politicians and military commanders in the city's pale blue-walled
cultural center.
That same early September day, a double suicide bombing that bore
Boko Haram's hallmarks killed 19 people in nearby Cameroon.
The group, best known for its kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian
schoolgirls in April 2014, has expanded from its base in northern
Nigeria to threaten the region. It has menaced U.S. and European
allies in west Africa, and leader Abubakar Shekau in March pledged
its loyalty to Islamic State.
The Diffa meeting was a modest success not just for its mutually
suspicious tribes but for a small team of fewer than 20 U.S. Special
Operations Forces conducting an experiment that is part of President
Barack Obama's new counter-terrorism strategy.
The soldiers, who encouraged the meeting and helped provide a ring
of security, do not go into combat, or even wear uniforms. They are
quietly trying to help Niger build a wall against Boko Haram's
incursions and its recruitment of Diffa's youth.
A Reuters reporter was the first to visit the detachment, which is
among about 1,000 U.S. Special Operations Forces deployed across
Africa.
In Chad, Nigeria, Niger and elsewhere, they are executing Obama's
relatively low-risk strategy of countering Islamic extremists by
finding local partners willing to fight rather than deploying combat
troops by the thousands.
The new approach, which Obama announced in May 2014, is far from
being a silver bullet for the United States in its global battle
against Islamic militancy. The indirect strategy appears to be
faltering in the Middle East, where the United States has found few
reliable allies on the battlefield in Syria. In Iraq, U.S.-trained
and -equipped forces evaporated last year in the face of Islamic
State's offensive.
In Niger, there are signs of success against Boko Haram, although
progress will likely be slow in a years-long effort, U.S., European
and African officials say.
"For the region, this is going to be a struggle that's going to be
with them for a long time, not just in Niger, but elsewhere," said
Army Col. Bob Wilson, commander of U.S. Special Operations Forces in
north and west Africa.
U.S. officials say they see predominantly Muslim Niger as worth
helping. Relatively stable, but facing national and local elections
in 2016, it is threatened by Boko Haram in Nigeria to the south,
chaos in Libya to the north and an al Qaeda affiliate that operates
in neighboring Algeria and Mali.
The U.S. soldiers in Diffa described their mission as a sharp and
welcome pivot from the Iraq and Afghan wars, where virtually all of
them served. The U.S. military has not said how long their presence
will last.
"It's a totally different approach to the problem set," an American
team sergeant said in an interview. The Special Operations soldiers
cannot be identified by name under military ground rules.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States also works with local
security forces and leaders - but has wielded thousands of combat
troops, drone strikes and pricey aid projects.
There is none of that in Diffa, a region that includes more than 200
villages along a 170-mile (273-km) stretch of the Komadougou Yobe
river that marks the porous border with Nigeria.
REGROUP AND DISAPPEAR
In April, at Niger's request, the American soldiers reinforced their
small ranks on a drab, dusty compound with few amenities. Boko Haram
was mounting a regional rampage and in February had launched
significant attacks inside Niger for the first time.
Working alongside them is an unusual U.S. non-profit group, Spirit
of America, that says it also aims to leave a light footprint. Under
written understandings with the Pentagon, it buttresses U.S.
military missions by providing local populations with small-scale
assistance that would take Washington's bureaucracy months or years
to procure.
In Niger, the group has provided first-aid kits, Camelbak hydration
systems and medical detectors for Niger's military. It covered the
$4,000 cost of the anti-Boko Haram summit.
"It's providing them with enough to get through this critical
phase," said Isaac Eagan, Spirit of America's field operations
director. "It's not fixing everything."
Boko Haram has long used Niger for refuge and resupply, officials
said. By the time the U.S. team sergeant and his men arrived, it had
been luring young men from Diffa's villages since the late 2000s,
offering money and adventure, he said.
"We missed the recruiting portion of it," he said.
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Anafi Ousmane, a member of Diffa's mayor's council, told Reuters
there had been three consecutive bad harvests of peppers, a primary
crop, leaving young farmers deep in debt. "Now Boko Haram's seeing
that vulnerability," he said through a translator. "I will give you
money. I will give you another motor bike, I will give you a woman.
Join me."
One group of U.S. soldiers was training Niger military's 3rd
Antiterrorist Company. Another began to grapple with the civilian
side of the problem, accompanying the nascent civil-military affairs
unit of Niger's military on visits to villages up and down the
river.
They encouraged villagers to report Boko Haram activity to military
authorities and young people to establish watch groups. Spirit of
America provided mobile phone credits to help.
Boko Haram has killed suspected informants and fear of the group
persists. In June, the militants attacked two villages in Diffa,
killing at least 30 civilians. Some died inside their mostly
straw-thatched houses, which were set alight.
Sergeant Fougou Saley, chief of civil-military affairs for the Diffa
region, said Boko Haram's violent tactics have alienated much of the
populace. But he said it still draws support from some of the Kanuri
people, whose lands straddle northeastern Nigeria and southeastern
Niger.
"In some places, some still have their heart toward Boko Haram,"
said Saley, himself a Kanuri.
But African, U.S. and European officials say the group's attacks in
Niger have dropped significantly in the face of a regional
counter-offensive this year by Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
"I think their command structure has suffered a lot," Colonel Major
Moussa Salaou Barmou, commander of the military district that
encompasses Diffa, told Reuters.
But Barmou said he warned his superiors: "Always keep in mind one
fact, that Boko Haram still keeps the ability to regroup very fast,
conduct an action and disappear again."
FOR HOW LONG?
The counter-Boko Haram summit brought together representatives of
the Kanuri, Faluni and Buduma tribes, as well as representatives of
thousands of refugees who have fled violence in northern Nigeria.
Voices were raised over whether former Boko Haram members who had
been arrested and set free should be allowed to rejoin their
communities. Most said no. When one speaker declared that captured
insurgents should be executed, applause broke out.
The U.S. soldiers stuck to their behind-the-scenes approach. The
team sergeant and a few others watched from the back of the room and
did not intervene even when the gathering appeared to almost
collapse in confusion after 20 minutes.
The soldiers say they feel more welcome in Niger than in Iraq and
Afghanistan, where the long U.S. military presence, American
missteps and mutual misunderstandings eroded tolerance.
"They're fully supportive of getting Boko Haram out of here. It's
nice to be able to work with folks like that - that want the problem
gone," said the team sergeant, who was wrapping up his deployment
and handing off to his replacement.
Less clear is how long the Americans will remain.
One thing they won't leave behind is large-scale development
projects like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. Years of reports by
U.S. inspectors general documented wide-scale waste and corruption
in those aid efforts.
"The biggest thing was not pumping money and projects into the
region," the team sergeant said. "Is it sustainable? Absolutely."
Saley, his counterpart from Niger, said: "I would even like the
Americans to stay for 40 years. ... I don't know what the American
government and Niger government will decide."
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