Suicide bombers in Niger detonated two car bombs simultaneously on Thursday, one inside a military camp in the city of Agadez and another in the remote town of Arlit at a French-operated uranium mine, killing a total of 26 people and injuring 30, according to officials in Niger and France, reports The Washington Post.
A surviving attacker took a group of soldiers hostage, and authorities were attempting to negotiate their release.
The timing of the attacks, which occurred at the same moment more than 100 miles apart, and the fact that the bombers were able to penetrate both a well-guarded military installation and a sensitive, foreign-operated uranium mine, highlight the growing reach and sophistication of the Islamic extremists based in neighboring Mali. Both attacks were claimed by a spinoff of al-Qaida, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, which earlier vowed to avenge the four-month-old French-led military intervention which ousted them from town’s in Mali’s north.
The most deaths were in the desert city of Agadez, located almost 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of the capital, where the attackers punched their explosive-laden car past the defenses at a military garrison and detonated inside the base, killing 20 soldiers and injuring 16 others, said Niger’s Minister of Defense Mahamadou Karidjo at a hastily assembled press conference in Niamey on Thursday. Three suicide bombers also died, but a fourth escaped and grabbed a group of military cadets, said Interior Minister Abdou Labo.
Draped in an explosive belt, the attacker was threatening to blow himself up along with his hostages, said Labo, who could not confirm how many cadets were being held. Almost 12 hours later, the military was still negotiating with the suicide bomber for their release.
At the same time the Agadez attack occurred, more than 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Agadez, a different group of suicide bombers slipped past a truck entering a uranium mine operated by French nuclear giant Areva. The car exploded once inside the campus, injuring 14 employees of the French company, one of whom died later, according to a statement by the French corporation and witnesses. Two suicide bombers were also killed, said the ministry of defense.
In January when France scrambled war planes over Mali and sent in thousands of ground troops to try to take back the country’s al-Qaida-held north, the extremists vowed to hit back not just at French interests, but also at the African governments that helped them.
Read more of this AP report published by The Washington Post.
See also Mediapart's report on The energy stakes in the Sahel surrounding the war in Mali.