US turns up pressure in critical ally Niger as region faces threat from Russia-loyal Wagner Group

When Niger was rattled by a coup in late July, it was just the latest West African nation to be challenged by mutinous militaries bent on unseating the existing government — what some have called a domino chain of armed takeovers in a sensitive part of the world where Russia-loyalist mercenaries are in ascendance.

But Niger, U.S. officials say, is different.

Niger's president, Mohamed Bazoum, who is now being held captive by his former security detail, is a rare democratically elected leader who was inaugurated in 2021 in the country's first peaceful transfer of power. His nation is the recipient of $2 billion in U.S. and other Western aid annually. And more than 1,000 U.S. troops