Niger’s prime minister blames US for rupture of military pact

Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine says in interview that US troops ‘stayed on our soil, doing nothing while terrorists killed people’

Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, Niger’s prime minister, has blamed the US for a rupture in an important military pact between the two countries that allows US forces to station in the west African nation.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Zeine said US officials had attempted to dictate which countries Niger could align with, had failed to justify the presence of US troops in the country while “doing nothing” to counter an Islamist insurgency in the region.