Boko Haram Kill 7 in attack on Military Barracks in Niger

Boko Haram Kill 7 in attack on Military Barracks in Niger

Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram killed seven police officers and injured others in an attack in southeastern Niger Republic, the Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum said on Saturday.

The insurgents, who have recently shifted their operations up north to Niger in the wake of a military offensive in Nigeria, attacked the village of N’Gagam near the Nigerian border on Friday evening, Bazoum said.

Urgence Diffa, which monitors the security and humanitarian situation in the area, reported that the attackers arrived in vehicles and opened fire on the military personnel in the village and stole several weapons.

The village is one of many that host refugees and internally displaced people who have been forced from their homes by the daredevil Islamist insurgents.

Boko Haram said in a statement that “a detachment from the soldiers of the Caliphate carried out an attack on military barracks of the Nigerien apostate army in the town of Ghafam in the area of Diffa … A quantity of weapons and various ammunition was taken as spoils.”

Niger’s government has called on former colonial power France, which already has 3,500 troops spread across five countries in West Africa, to strengthen military operations against the terrorists and other militants.

Boko Haram is an extremist Sunni organisation whose ultimate goal is to set up a fundamentalist theocracy under a strict interpretation of Islamic law.