Today's D Brief: Evacuations from Niger; Navy’s destroyer plans; N. Korea’s US soldier; Guam’s typhoon woes; And a bit more.

Less than a week after the coup in Niger, U.S. officials began evacuating some Americans from their embassy in Niamey, the State Department announced Wednesday. This includes “the temporary departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and eligible family members,” spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. 

“Commercial flight options are limited,” Miller cautioned, and added, “We are only able to provide emergency assistance to U.S. citizens in Niger given our reduced personnel” in the country. 

The UK is reducing its embassy staff in Niamey, as well. Already, at least 14 Britons evacuated Niger and arrived in France, Sky News reported Thursday. 

Italy evacuated nearly 100 people from different nations to Rome on Wednesday. That group included “36 Italians, as well as 21 U.S. citizens, four Bulgarians, two Austrians and one citizen each from Britain, Niger, Hungary, Senegal, and Nigeria...as well as [unspecified] military personnel,” Reuters reported. Italy had deployed about 300 of its troops in Niger for counterterrorism operations, similar to France and the U.S. though not nearly as staffed as those two countries. Protesters in Niamey attacked the French embassy earlier this week, and set fire to its doors while others threw rocks at the building. 

France, which relinquished its colonial-era control of the country on this day in August back in 1960, maintained about 1,500 troops in Niger as recently as this year, while the U.S. kept about 1,100 troops in the country. 

One of the Niger coup leaders is Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, who is the country’s special operations chief. Marmou had been trained by U.S. forces at Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning), Georgia, according to Nick Turse of The Intercept, reporting late last week. Indeed, less than two months ago, “Barmou met with Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, the head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, at Air Base 201, a drone base in the Nigerien city of Agadez that serves as the lynchpin of an archipelago of U.S. outposts in West Africa.”

That means “U.S.-trained military officers have taken part in 11 coups in West Africa since 2008,” according to Turse, who spoke with others at The Intercept for their latest podcast episode, published Wednesday. 

Said one U.S. official to The Intercept: “We train to standards—the laws of war and democratic standards. These are foreign military personnel. We can’t control what they do. We have no way to stop them.”

Niger “is facing a grave challenge to its democracy,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement marking Niger’s independence on Thursday. Biden also called for the immediate release of detained President Bazoum and his family. “In this critical moment, the United States stands with the people of Niger to honor our decades-long partnership rooted in shared democratic values and support for civilian-led governance.” 

“The Nigerien people have the right to choose their leaders,” Biden said. “They have expressed their will through free and fair elections—and that must be respected. Defending fundamental democratic values, and standing up for constitutional order, justice, and the right of peaceful assembly, are essential to the partnership between Niger and the United States.” 

Additional reading:

• “A Leader of Niger’s Coup Visits Mali, Raising Fears of a Wagner Alliance,” the New York Times reported Wednesday;  
• “Niger reopens borders with five neighbours a week after coup,” al-Jazeera reported Wednesday;
• “US sees narrow opportunity to reverse course in Niger after coup,” Reuters reported earlier this week;  
• And “The U.S. should suspend aid to the Niger coup plotters,” the Washington Post’s editorial board argued earlier this week as well. 

Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet, you can do that here. On this day in 2019, a 21-year-old Texas white nationalist entered a Walmart in El Paso before killing 23 people and wounding nearly two dozen others in one of the country’s deadliest mass shootings and the deadliest attack on Latinos in U.S. history. The shooter had posted a manifesto online that cited the far-right conspiracy theory known as the “Great Replacement” as an inspiration for his attack. Just last month, he was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences for the violence, which may still earn him the death penalty under Texas law, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. Navy adds destroyers, extends others’ service. On Tuesday, the Navy issued multiship, multiyear, multibillion-dollar deals to buy three DDG-51 guided missile destroyers from Bath Iron Works and six from Ingalls Shipbuilding over the next five years. The following day, it announced that it would extend the lives of four existing Arleigh Burke destroyers for four to five years. The Navy had announced its intention to do something like that a while ago, but appeared to let that plan lapse. Lawmakers, however, have kept up pressure on the service to keep older hulls around despite Navy pleas to retire them as planned and put the money toward newer ships. D1’s Caitlin Kenney has more, here.

How much will the new DDG-51s cost? The Navy won’t say. Instead, Frederick Stefany—acting assistant Navy secretary for research, development and acquisition—said the nine-ship plan would save an estimated $830 million. That works out to about $92.2 million per destroyer, which a March CRS report said are running about $2.2 billion apiece. 

New: North Korea confirms it is holding U.S. soldier. Pyongyang says it has custody of Army Pvt. Travis King, its first response to United Nations’  requests for information on the whereabouts of the 23-year-old who ran across the border on July 18. The UN Command said it had finally heard from the North Korean Army on Thursday, but added, “In order not to interfere with our efforts to get him home, we will not go into details at this time.” 

Writes the BBC: “The reply indicates Pyongyang could be ready to start negotiating.” It’s unclear just yet if King will get what’s often called the “gilded cage” treatment in North Korea. Reuters has a bit more on that possibility and history, reporting on July 19, here. 

Two months after a typhoon walloped Guam, the U.S. Air Force is still working to clean up facilities around the island, including more than 175 tons of debris, as well as picking up the pieces of destroyed shelters for two of the U.S. military’s Terminal High Altitude Area [missile] Defense systems that have been posted in Guam for nearly a decade. 

Guam, in focus: The New York Times sent photojournalist Glenna Gordon to the island for a three-week dispatch published last month. (Gordon’s feature was linked to a much longer profile of Guam’s residents by Sarah Topol of the New York Times Magazine.) “I wanted to capture the military buildup on Guam and how the operations were affecting the lives of the people there,” wrote Gordon, who said the island “sometimes felt like a San Diego suburb.” Some 21,000 U.S. troops are stationed on Guam, which is home to 170,000 people, including the indigenous Chamorro community.  

Gordon visited the nuclear-powered submarine USS Springfield during her visit. She also flew with the U.S. Coast Guard “while it simulated an information systems failure,” and “photographed members of the elite U.S. Naval explosive-ordnance disposal team as they jumped out of helicopters.” 

But on the non-military side, Guam’s hotels were packed with families whose homes were still without electricity. And, of course, not every hotel had electricity either, a stark reminder that typhoon recovery efforts will likely continue for some weeks. 

“When we started doing the clean-up, we thought it was going to be just clean sunshine; but when we started it actually poured down on us, we were soaked from head to toe,” one Air Force staff sergeant said on Friday. “The weather was challenging, but it didn’t stop us.” 

Unease on the horizon: Because of its location south of Japan and closer to the Philippines than Hawaii, the U.S. military plans to install a 360-degree missile defense network on Guam by 2027. (THAAD systems are designed largely to shoot down short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their final, or terminal, phase of flight; but due to North Korea’s advancing intercontinental ballistic missile program, U.S. officials are expanding and diversifying their regional missile defense plans, which involves Guam.) However, not everyone on Guam is happy about those plans, according to the Guardian, reporting from the island in late July. 

“A few missiles making it through may not be the worst-case scenario for the military’s ability to sustain operations,” said Guam-born former House delegate Robert Underwood. “But for those who call the island home, this can destroy lives and livelihoods,” he told the Guardian. Continue reading, here. 

Related reading: 

• “Guam Hosts Air Force's Biggest Mobility Exercise As Fears Of Pacific Fight Grow,” The Drive reported in early July; that exercise—Mobility Guardian—concluded nearly two weeks ago; 
• ICYMI, the U.S. “Senate vote[d] to expand radiation-exposure compensation, from Guam to Trinity test site and Colorado,” the Associated Press reported on Saturday;
• And from the region, “Australia helicopter crash: Remains found in search for victims,” the BBC reported Thursday.

And lastly: A young U.S. Army officer perished this week in Germany after her Stryker vehicle was hit by a civilian semi-truck as the Stryker merged onto the Autobahn near the town of Tirschenreuth, close to the Czech Republic.

Her name is 1st Lt. Hailey Hodsden, 24, and she was a platoon leader with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s 4th Squadron. “Hodsden was a U.S. Military Academy at West Point graduate, where she was commissioned as an Armor officer,” service officials said in a statement Thursday. She was born in Dripping Springs, Texas, and “had been in the unit for a little over a year,” according to the Army. No one else in the Stryker was injured in the incident. 

“Lt. Hodsden was well-respected by all who knew and served with her; she was a valued Dragoon and teammate,” said Col. Robert McChrystal, who commands the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. “We extend our sincerest condolences to her family, friends, and fellow Dragoons,” he added.