[7] The two military service branches (Niger Army and Niger Air Force) are each headed by their respective Chiefs of Staff who serve as adjunct to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Military Armed Forces (French: Chef d'État Major des Armées).

Military operations are headed from the Joint Staff Office (French: État Major Général des Armées).

[10] Niger Army's manoeuvre forces include 14 combined arms infantry battalions and a single amphibious riverine company.

Initially, units of the army were created from three companies of the French Colonial Forces made of Nigérien soldiers officered by Frenchmen who agreed to take joint French-Nigerien citizenship.

With the growing cross-border threats of terrorism in West Africa, the Niger Army has benefited from training exercises with France and the U.S.

[25] The Chief of Staff of the Niger Air Force is the colonel Abdoul Kader Amirou[26] (chef d'état major).

In 2014, a logistic company was trained and equipped by the United States with fuel and water trucks, ambulances and 4x4 unarmed vehicles.

[28] The aircraft inventory of the Niger Air Force is modest though it has increased with new acquisitions beginning in 2008, and further assistance from France and the United States.

In addition to territorial defense and maintaining public order, it provides military and paramilitary justice to other corps of the armed forces and participates to the judicial and the surveillance police activities.

This body is responsible for: border and territorial surveillance of the country, public safety, maintaining and restoring of order, protecting public buildings and institutions, people and their property, the execution of the administrative police in rural and pastoral areas, management and monitoring of prisons, humanitarian actions in the case of national disaster or crisis and protection of the environment.

[32] The General Directorate of National Police, headquartered in Niamey was until the 1999 Constitution under the command of the Armed Forces and Ministry of Defense.

The FNIS, along with some special units of the Gendarmerie, are armed and trained in military fashion, similar to the Internal Troops of the nations of the former Soviet Union.

[34] The Gendarmerie has law enforcement jurisdiction outside the Urban Communes of Niger, while the National police patrols towns.

Special internal security operations may be carried out by the Military, the FNIS, the Gendarmerie, or whatever forces tasked by the Government of Niger.

An armed attack by FPLN members in Tchin - Tabaradene in 1985 sparked the closing of the borders with Libya and Algeria, and the resettlement of thousands of Tuareg and other nomads away from the area.

Failed promises by the government of Ali Saïbou fueled growing Tuareg discontent leading to an attack on a police station in Tchin - Tabaradene in May 1990.

The Nigérien Armed Forces has been extensively involved in politics since independence, and has been denounced at several points for broad abrogation of human rights and unlawful detentions and killings.

A previously unknown group, the Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice (MNJ), emerged in February 2007.

On 10 December 2019, a large group of fighters belonging to the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS) attacked a military post in Inates, Niger,[37] killing over seventy soldiers and kidnapping others.

[39] On 9 January 2020, a large group of IS-GS militants assaulted a Nigerien military base at Chinagodrar, in Niger's Tillabéri Region.

The collapse of the Gaddafi regime, followed with the disbandment of his arsenal in the region, accentuated the precarious situation of many sahelian nations.

[48] According to Gaetz's report, Niger has not authorized flights for United States Department of Defense efforts, including the sending of food, equipment, mail, or medical supplies.

[49] In 1996, a former officer under Kountché and the then chief of staff, Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, staged his own coup, placing the military again in power.

During the Maïnassara regime, human rights abuses were reported by foreign NGOs, including the discovery of 150 dead bodies in a mass grave at Boultoungoure, thought to be Toubou rebels.

In April 1999, the third coup led by Douada Mallam Wanké was staged leading to murder of President Baré by his own guards.

[50] Major Daouda Mallam Wanke, commander of the Niamey-based military region and the head of the Republican Guard assumed power, but returned the nation to civilian rule within the year.

The Armed Forces—which includes the National Gendarmerie—have undergone a series of structural changes aimed at professionalisation of the ranks and the retaining of more skilled recruits.

The United States provided transportation and logistical assistance to Nigerien troops deployed to Ivory Coast in 2003.