Gunmen kill 5 soldiers in attack on western Niger town

NIAMEY, Niger – Heavily armed gunmen killed five Niger soldiers and injured four others Tuesday in an attack on a town near the border with Mali, Niger’s interior ministry said in a statement.

The attack on the western town of Banibangou began at 5 a.m. with the gunmen arriving on 10 motorcycles and two other vehicles, according to the statement.

Two assailants were killed and 26 others in possession of weapons and ammunition were arrested, the ministry said.

The statement did not say anything about who was behind the attack and government spokesman Assamana Malam Issa said he could not speculate about their identity.

Landlocked Niger faces threats of extremist violence from al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants in Mali to the west as well as Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgents to the south and jihadists in Libya to the north.

Last month, gunmen killed 22 soldiers guarding a camp in western Niger housing Malian refugees. In a separate incident later in the month, gunmen abducted an American aid worker in Niger and fled with him toward Mali.

President Mahamadou Issoufou ordered that those arrested Tuesday be prosecuted, the interior ministry’s statement said.

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Associated Press writer Baba Ahmed contributed from Bamako, Mali.