Car bomb kills 20 soldiers as attacks launched in Niger

Niger’s defence minister Mahamadou Karidjo told reporters that a simultaneous explosion more than 100 miles away in the town of Arlit inside a uranium mine operated by French nuclear giant Areva injured 13.

Five suicide bombers died in the twin explosions, he added.

And the country’s interior minister says that a suicide attacker, who penetrated the military garrison in Agadez, has taken several cadets hostage. Abdou Labo said the attacker was draped in an explosive belt and threatening to blow himself up.

The government of Niger has decreed a 72-hour national period of mourning over the attacks, believed to have been carried out by Islamic extremists based in neighbouring Mali.

If so, this would be the single-most damaging operation they have carried out since January when France launched a military intervention to oust them.

Paris-based Areva confirmed in a statement that 13 employees were hurt in the attack in Arlit, in the northern part of Niger where in 2010 al Qaida’s branch in Africa kidnapped five French citizens working for the mining company. Residents in the two towns said that both attacks occurred at around 5.30 am, indicating a level of co-ordination among the attackers.

Alhousseiny Moussa, a resident of Agadez, was just steps away from his mosque for first prayers, when he heard the boom coming from the city’s military camp. “I heard the explosion and immediately after I heard a volley of gunfire. The area where it happened was inside the military camp and it’s now been roped off so we cannot go in, “ he said.

Another resident of Agadez, a city on the edge of the Sahara desert, said the bomb startled him awake: “We heard a strong detonation that woke the whole neighbourhood, it was so powerful,” said Abdoulaye Harouna. “The whole town is now surrounded by soldiers looking for the attackers.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but because Niger shares a border with the troubled nation of Mali, whose north was occupied for most of last year by fighters loyal to al Qaida, residents and government officials assume the attackers are Islamic extremists.

The Movement of Oneness and Jihad in West Africa has led repeated suicide attacks inside Mali.