West African military chiefs are set to meet Thursday in Ghana to coordinate a possible intervention aimed at reversing Niger's coup.
Alarmed by a cascade of takeovers in the region, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has decided to create a "standby force to restore constitutional order" in Niger.
The meeting of the top brass on Thursday and Friday comes after fresh violence in the insurgent-hit country, with militants killing at least 17 soldiers in an ambush.
An army detachment was "the victim of a terrorist ambush near the town of Koutougou" i n the Tillaberi region near Burkina Faso on Tuesday, Niger's defence ministry said.
Twenty more soldiers were wounded, six seriously, in the heaviest losses since the July 26 coup.
Sahel insurgencies
Insurgencies across the Sahel region have killed thousands of troops, police officers and civilians, and forced millions to flee their homes.
Anger at the bloodshed has fuelled military coups in all three countries since 2020, with Niger the latest to fall when its elected President Mohamed Bazoum was ousted on July 26.
The generals who have detained Bazoum said "the deteriorating security situation" sparked the coup.
Analysts say an intervention to oust the coup's leaders would be militarily and politically risky, and the bloc has said it prefers a diplomatic outcome.
ECOWAS issued a statement Tuesday "strongly condemning" the latest attack, urging the military "to restore constitutional order in Niger to be able to focus (its) attention on security... weaker since the attempted coup d'etat".
Ambassador visit
Talks have taken place this week in Addis Ababa among ECOWAS and Niger representatives under the aegis of the African Union.
The US said on Wednesday that a new ambassador would soon head to Niger to help lead diplomacy aimed at reversing the coup.
Kathleen FitzGibbon, a career diplomat with extensive experience in Africa, will travel to Niamey despite the ordered departure of the embassy's non-emergency staff.
On Tuesday, Niger's military-appointed civilian prime minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, made an unannounced visit to neighbouring Chad -- a key nation in the unstable Sahel but not a member of ECOWAS.
He met President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, offering what he described as a message of "good neighbourliness and good fraternity" from the head of Niger's regime.
