Niger received heavy machine guns and all-terrain vehicles offered by France on Wednesday to help this poor Sahelian country regularly targeted by jihadist attacks to fight terrorist groups, the Nigerian defense ministry said.
Twenty-eight light military pick-ups of the “
Masstech
”
type
and 71 heavy 12-7 machine guns were received, and are intended for the special intervention battalion located in Dosso, in southwestern Niger, the ministry said.
"
Niger is facing with courage and determination terrorist groups using barbaric methods
," said Alexandre Garcia, the French ambassador to Niger, during a ceremony in Niamey.
Read alsoNiger: eleven soldiers killed in an ambush against the convoy of a prefect near Burkina
Alkassoum Indatou, the Nigerien Minister of Defense, for his part welcomed France's “
participation
” “
in the rise in force
” of the Nigerian army “
in the fight against terrorism and cross-border crime
”. Niger has been hit for several years by deadly attacks by jihadist groups, especially in the near west of Mali, where the Islamic State group is present, and in the south-east bordering Lake Chad and Nigeria, which has become a den of Boko Haram group and its rival and dissident Iswap (Islamic State in West Africa). Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum recently lamented that his country, Libya's neighbor, “
is located in the epicenter of the perimeter where terrorism is rife: on the border of the two original major centers of northern Mali and the Lake Chad basin
”.
Read alsoNiger: nearly 600,000 people exposed to food insecurity, according to the UN
In its fight against armed Islamists, Niger benefits in particular from the logistical and training support of France and the United States, which have military bases there.
Thanks to German support, Niger also inaugurated in mid-July in Tillia, in the Tahoua region (near west of Mali), a training center for its anti-jihadist special forces.
The command center of the European Takuba task force, made up of elite troops to train soldiers in combat, will also soon be installed in Niamey.