Fourteen troops were killed when “heavily-armed terrorists” ambushed a convoy in the western Niger region of Tillaberi, the interior ministry said on Thursday. “After a fierce battle… seven police and seven national guards were killed” on Wednesday, it said in a statement. Niger, a poor, landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, is on the front line of a jihadist insurgency. On December 10, 71 soldiers were killed in Tillaberi when hundreds of jihadists attacked a military camp with shelling and mortars. Niger is part of a five-nation anti-jihadist task force known as the G5, set up in 2014 with Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Chad.

Source: Punch December 26, 2019 18:00 UTC