NIAMEY, Feb 23, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Eighteen civilians have been killed in
two suspected jihadist attacks in the west of Niger near the Sahel nation's
border with Mali, the government said Tuesday.

   The attack happened on Sunday when unidentified "armed bandits" on
motorbikes attacked a truck travelling between villages in the Tillaberi
region, which lies in a flashpoint zone where the frontiers of Niger, Burkina
Faso and Mali converge, it said.

   The interior ministry, in a statement, said "the provisional toll of the
attack is 18 people killed, eight injured" with five of those injured
admitted to hospital in serious condition.

   The truck was then set on fire, the ministry said, adding that a search
was underway to find the attackers.

   A local resident confirmed the death toll saying that 14 were killed in
the attack on the truck.

   "Three people who surprised the attackers in a hiding place in the bush,
then another person in the attack on the village of Tizigorou", the
individual told AFP, claiming to have lost "a nephew" in the attacks.

   A local lawmaker, who gave a far lower toll earlier in the day, said that
the vehicle targeted by the attackers had been returning from Niger's capital
Niamey on Sunday afternoon carrying passengers from four local villages as
well as their cargo.

   Witnesses reported that the attackers "killed nearly all of the men
onboard, before taking their supplies and burning the truck," the lawmaker
said.

   - Jihadist threat -

   Armed groups carried out numerous attacks on civilians in the region in
2021, including a November 2 massacre of at least 69 members of a self-
defence militia.

   In October 2021, motorcycle-riding assailants killed ten people in a
mosque near Tizigorou during evening prayers.

   Last Wednesday an improvised explosive device killed five Nigerien
soldiers in the southwest of the Sahel country, according to the defence
ministry.

   The blast occurred in the Gotheye district of Tillaberi.

   Western Niger has for years faced jihadist attacks, despite the efforts of
international forces deployed to the wider Sahel region to fight the Islamist
insurgents.

   Niger, the world's poorest country according to the UN's Human Development
Index, has to contend with two jihadist insurgencies.

   It has faced groups such as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS)
in the west, as well as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province
(ISWAP) in the southeast, near the border with Nigeria.

   Niger's neighbour Mali has been struggling to contain a brutal jihadist
insurgency that first emerged in 2012, before spreading to Burkina Faso and
Niger.

   Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and two million
people have been displaced by the Sahel-wide conflict, of which Mali remains
the epicentre.

   France announced a military pullout last week due to a dispute with Mali's
military junta, which seized power in 2020 and has since defied international
calls to swiftly restore civil rule.