France – Africa Intelligence, Nov. 28, 2025
In early November, a team from Niger’s main intelligence agency, the DGDSE, quietly made their way to the city of Tillabéri, capital of the region of the same name in the southwest of the country. There, officers from the agency, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Souleymane Balla-Arabé, met with a prominent figure from the village of Ayorou. He had recently been freed from the clutches of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), after being kidnapped in October.
During their debriefing, the DGDSE agents questioned the former hostage about a highly sensitive matter. This concerns the fate of Kevin Rideout, an American citizen kidnapped in Niamey on the night of 21-22 October. Nigerien security officials suspect his captors of passing through the area around Ayorou with their prisoner, in the same region in which the mayor recently released by ISGS seems to have been held. They are believed to have then crossed the Malian border, finding refuge for a time in the town of Ti-n-Agarof, near the Ansongo-Ménaka nature reserve.
This mobilisation by the Nigerien authorities is taking place in close coordination with the Trump administration, which has made Rideout’s release a priority. While the American authorities are currently refraining from giving details on the kidnappers’ identities, the leading theory is that they are intermediaries close to ISGS, which remains very active in the border region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Falloff in intelligence capabilities
While the hostage is reportedly being moved frequently within this area, which is largely outside of the control of the states involved, American investigators and their Nigerien counterparts are struggling to locate him. These difficulties are exacerbated by the falloff in intelligence capabilities of the US and its main partners in the region over the past few years.
