The Islamic State has claimed for an attack conducted by its West African Province (ISWAP) on a military camp in Niger that left at least 71 soldiers dead. The attack occurred Inates in the western Tillaberi region near Niger’s border with Mali.
Jihadists attacked the military camp with shells and mortars in an attack that has left over 120 injured and a few dozen still missing. It has been dubbed as the deadliest attack on Niger’s military since Islamist militant violence began to spill over from neighboring Mali in 2015.
While Niger’s military maintains that a ‘substantial’ number of terrorists were killed in the three-hour attack that combined shelling and artillery fire ISWAP has quoted a higher number of casualties on the military side.
Militant violence has spread across the vast Sahel region, especially in Burkina Faso and Niger, after it began when armed Islamists revolted in northern Mali in 2012. In the last four months, more than 230 soldiers in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have lost their lives, in addition to 13 French troops killed in a helicopter collision while hunting jihadists in northern Mali.
Intelligence indicates that ISWAP and other Jihadis active in Africa’s Sahel region have escalated to conduct bolder and seemingly more coordinated attacks and as such veering away from common hit-run and guerilla attacks. The terrorists have evolved to operations that involve hundreds of fighters, armed with mortars and suicide attack vehicles that have been inflicting larger casualties especially on the security apparatus in the region.
