Niger’s army repelled an attack overnight on a military drone base at the airport in the southwestern city of Tahoua, security and local sources said on Monday.
The incident comes a few weeks after Niger’s main airport in the capital Niamey was targeted in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
The West African country, which has been led by a military junta since a July 2023 coup, has been plagued for a decade by jihadist violence involving Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group affiliates.
It was not known who was behind the latest attack. But several soldiers were wounded and several assailants killed, a security source said.
“Heavy gunfire followed by explosions was heard around 3:00 am (02:00 GMT),” a resident in Tahoua, which lies in a region bordering Nigeria, told AFP.
Unidentified assailants “arrived on motorcycles” and “exchanges of fire were coming from the direction of the city’s airport and the city centre”, the local resident added.
A local radio journalist told AFP that the target of the attack was a Nigerien army airbase at Tahoua airport.
Niger’s ANP official news agency spoke of a “terrorist attack” that targeted a “drone shelter” and said five suspects were arrested.
A security source told AFP that the attack was repelled by Niger’s military.
Several soldiers were wounded, and several assailants were killed, the source added, without giving figures.
A drone base was built at Tahoua in 2022.
Drones from Niger’s air force often operate in the region, which faces jihadist attacks in the northern part near Mali and attacks by “bandits” along its border with Nigeria.
Usually, the city of more than 100,000 inhabitants is spared, however.
Detonations could be heard on videos filmed by residents and posted on social media.
Several local sources said the situation had calmed down by dawn.
Last week, a customs officer and at least three civilians were killed in an attack on a checkpoint near the Nigerian border in the Tahoua region.
The region is also home to pockets of armed bandits as well as smuggling routes for fuel, drugs, and counterfeit pharmaceutical products.
