WSJ Information Unique | U.S. Seeks Drone Bases in Coastal West Africa to Stem Islamist Advance

NAIROBI—The U.S. is in search of to base army drones alongside the West African coast in an pressing effort to cease the unfold of al Qaeda and Islamic State within the area, in accordance with American and African officers.

The U.S. is holding preliminary talks to permit American unarmed reconnaissance drones to make use of airfields in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Benin, international locations on the Atlantic Ocean. Comparatively steady and affluent, the three coastal international locations, together with Togo, now discover themselves threatened by Islamist militants surging south from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—three beleaguered nations within the Sahel, the semidesert band south of the Sahara.