Accessibility links

Breaking News

Militants Kill 15 Niger Soldiers in Patrol Ambush


Militants ambushed an army patrol in Niger on Thursday, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 19, the Defense Ministry said, occurring in an area near the border with Mali where violent Islamists have been seeking to expand their reach.

"A search operation is underway to neutralize the terrorists," the ministry statement said of the attack just outside the town of Tiloa.

Militants and allied criminal gangs have long exploited the areas around the vast, desert border between Mali and Niger to launch attacks, even after a French-led military intervention pushed insurgent groups back from northern Mali in 2013.

Attacks in Niger are much rarer than in Mali, although militants in the past year have been expanding across borders in the fragile Sahel region into Niger and Burkina Faso.

Gunmen riding motor bikes and other vehicles raided a village and killed five soldiers in Niger in November.

Assailants kidnapped a U.S. aid worker in central Niger a month earlier.

  • 16x9 Image

    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

XS
SM
MD
LG