Niger suicide bombers target Areva mine and barracks

Two suicide bombers have struck a military camp and a French-run uranium mine in two towns in north western Niger, officials say.

A bomb at the military barracks in Agadez killed at least 17 soldiers, Niger's defence minister told the BBC.

French nuclear firm Areva said that 13 people at its Somair plant in the town of Arlit were wounded.

Niger's government blamed Mujao, a jihadist group from neighbouring Mali, French radio said.

Both attacks were carried out as people prepared for the early morning prayer just after 5 o'clock, BBC West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy reports.

Nigerien Defence Minister Mahamadou Karidjo said insurgents drove a car bomb into the military base at Agadez. A number of people were wounded in the blast, including civilians.

"We heard a strong detonation that woke the whole neighbourhood, it was so powerful," Abdoulaye Harouna, a resident of Agadez, told the Associated Press.

Kidnapped

Further north, a suicide bomber blew up a car close to workers at the Areva-run mine at Arlit.

"A man in military uniform driving a 4x4 packed with explosives mixed in with the Somair workers and blew up his vehicle in front of the power station at the uranium treatment facility," a mine employee told AFP news agency.

"Company managers told us the suicide bomber was killed in the explosion."

Security was stepped up at Areva's Arlit operation - one of the country's biggest uranium mines - in February. Niger provides one-fifth of France's uranium needs, according to French media.

Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou said French special forces had moved in to protect the site after dozens of hostages died when Islamist militants seized a gas plant in Algeria in January.

Five French workers were kidnapped from the Arlit mine by Islamist militants in 2010.

Four of them are still being held and it is believed they could be in northern Mali, close to where French troops were sent to oust al-Qaeda-linked militants in January.

Mujao (the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) is a splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operating mostly in northern Mali.

It says its objective is to spread jihad to West Africa rather than confine itself to the Sahel and Maghreb regions - the main focus of AQIM.

Courtesy: BBC.co.uk