Niger

Senegal Builds Military Camp Near Border With Troubled Mali

Senegal began building a military camp near its border with violence-torn Mali to address "cross-border threats (and) trafficking," the defense ministry said.

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Mayor, Soldiers Among Eight Killed in Burkina Faso Attack

Battling a jihadist insurgency since 2015, Burkina Faso had no room to breathe a sigh of relief on Monday when gunmen ambushed an official convoy and killed eight people.

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Jihadists Abduct 10 Aid Workers in Niger: NGO

Armed jihadists abducted 10 humanitarian workers as they were distributing food in a village in southwestern Niger, their NGO said.

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Two UN Peacekeepers Killed in Attack in Northern Mali

Gunmen have killed two UN peacekeepers in a region of northwestern Mali wracked by jihadist violence, the UN said Sunday.

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Three Top Jihadists Dominate Sahel After Al-Qaeda Leader Death

Three leaders have been left dominating the jihadist insurgency in the Sahel, following the death of a top al-Qaeda commander in the West African state of Mali last week.

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Thousands Flee Niger Refugee Camp After Jihadist Attack

Thousands of people have fled a camp hosting 20,000 Malian refugees in western Niger after a deadly jihadist attack devastated the site, the United Nations said Wednesday. Around 50 jihadists on motorbikes killed three local leaders, abducted a guard, destroyed communication antennas, and sabotaged the water supply at the Intikane site near the Malian border in a coordinated attack on Monday. Intikane is home to around 20,000 Malian refugees and 15,000 internally displaced Niger citizens — all of whom previously fled their villages due to jihadist violence — as well as the local population. Now many are on the move again, with some 3,000 people fleeing to Tlemces, a site 27 kilometers (43 miles) from Intikane, the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Niamey told AFP. UNHCR official Kourouma Mamady Fatta said the agency was carrying out an assessment of the damage and was trying to get the water supply flowing again. The governor of the Tahoua region, Moussa Abdourahamane, said, “Intikane is losing its population, people are moving towards Tlemces.” The jihadists “attacked the sensitive points of the site — they cut communication lines to isolate the population and they destroyed the sources for drinking water,” he told the national public …

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Two Soldiers, Five Volunteers Killed in Burkina Attack

Two Burkina Faso soldiers and five civilian defense volunteers have been killed during an ambush on a military patrol in the restive north of the country, security sources said Tuesday. The attack occurred on Monday as soldiers from the military detachment in Banh in Loroum province were carrying out a patrol in the area, the sources said. “Two soldiers were killed along with five civilians,” a security source told AFP. Another security source said the civilian casualties were “defense volunteers who were with the military unit during the patrol,” adding two soldiers also died. The source said four others in the patrol were wounded, without giving further details. Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist alliance GSIM claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming to have killed “nine soldiers” in an ambush and taken weapons and vehicles, in a text sent to AFP late Tuesday. The Mali-based GSIM (Group to Support Islam and Muslims) comprises several different jihadist groups in the Sahel. On May 11, jihadists killed eight Burkinabe soldiers during an attack close to the Niger border in Yagha province, security sources said at the time. Burkina Faso is part of a regional effort to battle an Islamist insurgency, along with neighboring Mali and Niger, Mauritania and Chad. However, …

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A French A400M airdropped 40 tonnes of supplies to troops in the Sahel

A French Airbus A400M transport aircraft airdropped almost 40 tonnes of supplies to troops operating in the troubled Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa

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Joint Niger-Barkhane operation ‘neutralizes’ 120 terrorists, defense ministry says

A joint operation conducted by Nigerien and French forces "neutralized" 120 "terrorists" and seized bomb-making equipment in western Niger

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AFRICOM shifts strategy from degrading to containing West Africa insurgents, OIG report says

United States Africa Command has shifted its strategy from degrading violent extremist organizations in West Africa to simply containing their spread

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