In the past few days, the United States informed the coup-plotting leadership of Niger that it would comply with its request to withdraw U.S. forces from the country, which had been operating in a counterterrorism role there for more than half a decade. At the end of last week, authorities in Chad had sent a letter this month to the US defense attaché based there. The potential withdrawal would mark another blow for the Western security presence in the Sahel — the vast arid region that