Security

At least 20 people were killed and others sustained gunshot wounds on Thursday after armed men attacked two villages in the north central state of Plateau, where violence between cattle herders and farmers is common, police said. Plateau police spokesperson Alfred Alabo said the attacks took place in the early …

Niger’s coup leaders on Wednesday accused France of violating the closure of Niger’s airspace and “liberating the terrorists”, which they say constitutes a real plan to destabilize Niger. “French forces took off on Wednesday from N’Djamena, Chad, a military plane at 6:01 a.m. local time,” said a statement from the …

US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken warned in an interview that Wagner was taking advantage of the instability caused by the coup in Niger, as the group of Russian mercenaries had already moved closer to neighboring Mali. US secretary of state tells BBC he doesn’t believe Wagner, who initiated a failed …

Around 13,000 people have been called to temporarily leave their homes in a district of Düsseldorf, in western Germany, after the discovery of an American bomb dating from the Second World War, the city’s firefighters said. The American bomb which weighs one ton must be defused overnight from Monday to …

French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Monday refuted the idea that Operation Barkhane was a failure, in response to an open letter from around a hundred senators addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron. “Today Niger, yesterday Mali, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso rejected France, French forces, French companies”, …

Niger coup leader Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani has apppointed Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, a former finance minister as the new prime minister. Mr Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine replaces Mahamadou Ouhoumoudou, who was in Europe during the coup. Mr Zeine, reported to be in his 50s, served as cabinet director and finance …

A senior Ethiopian official accused militiamen in the Amhara region of seeking to overthrow the regional and federal governments following days of fighting that led the authorities to declare a state of emergency, Reuters agency reported. Clashes between Fano militiamen and the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) continued over the …

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), announced that it would organize a summit on Thursday in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to discuss the crisis in Niger. ECOWAS had given coup leaders seven days to reinstate the elected president or face the possibility of military intervention. However, the deadline …

The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group announced in an audio recording posted on Telegram, the death of its leader, Abu Al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurachi. According to initial reports, he was killed in clashes with the jihadist formation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in northwestern Syria.

Nigerian authorities said on Wednesday they had cut off electricity supplies to their northern neighbor Niger after a military coup in the country. The move follows sanctions by Niger’s West African neighbors, local media reported. Niger is 70% energy dependent on Nigeria. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), …