Boko
Haram fighters on Sunday launched a twin attacks on Niger Republic in their
latest effort at expanding regional insurgency, killing a child and injuring 20
others.
The
Islamist militants launched Sunday’s first assault on the edge of the
southeastern town of Diffa before dawn, just two days after their first major
offensive in Niger, witnesses told AFP.
A
few hours later a suicide bomber reportedly blew herself up in the centre of
the town, killing a child and wounding 20 people, a health official told AFP
on the telephone.
“The
child was working near a food vendor,” the source said, requesting anonymity,
adding that the injured were receiving treatment.
An
official at Diffa town hall said the blast appeared to be the work of a female
suicide attacker who blew herself up at the local market, while other sources
referred to a bomb or mortar shell.
There
was no immediate toll from the pre-dawn fighting Sunday between the
Nigeria-based Islamist rebels and the Niger troops, possibly alongside Chadian
forces, who have taken a lead role in battling Boko Haram.
Chadian
soldiers fought alongside Niger’s troops against the first cross-border attack
by Boko Haram in Niger on Friday.
The
Islamist fighters had been massed for months on the Nigerian side of the
Komadougou Yobe river forming a small part of the border between the two
countries.
Niger
announced last week that it would ask its parliament on Monday to approve
sending troops to Nigeria to fight the militants alongside Chadian and
Cameroonian soldiers.
The
incursions into Niger mark an expansion of the violence attributed to Boko
Haram, which has waged a six-year insurgency centred in northeastern Nigeria,
where the Islamists have seized swathes of territory.
The
conflict has killed at least 13,000 people and forced more than a million from
their homes since 2009.
The
uprising has become a regional crisis, with the four directly affected
countries – Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria – agreeing on Saturday along with
Benin to muster 8,700 troops, police and civilians in a regional effort against
the militants.
Last
week Chad launched a cross-border ground assault to battle the jihadists and
recapture the Nigerian town of Gamboru after having bombed the area beforehand.
Chad’s army said it had killed more than 200 Boko Haram fighters in the
clashes.
Friday’s
strikes in Niger targeted Diffa as well as the nearby town of Bosso, with
Niamey claiming that 109 Boko Haram fighters were killed as well as four
soldiers and a civilian. Niger security forces said 17 of their men were wounded,
and two were missing.
Sunday’s
attacks have plunged the poor Sahel country into fear.
“It’s
panic everywhere,” said a journalist in Diffa, the provincial capital, where
tens of thousands of people have fled the Boko Haram violence in Nigeria.
Mounting
worries over Boko Haram prompted Nigeria to postpone key national elections by
six weeks, saying security could not be guaranteed for the polls because
available military resources were being committed to intensified operations
against the rebels.
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