A car bomb exploded near a checkpoint in Somalia capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, May 22, killing at least two people and wounding 12 others, officials said according to thedefensepost.com.

The bombing was claimed by Islamist militant group al-Shabaab, which said in a statement it had targeted a convoy escorting officials and lawmakers heading to the presidential palace.

“A car bomb blast struck at a checkpoint near Daljirka, there are some casualties including members of the security forces,” said security official Abdukadir Ahmed after the attack in the south of the city.

Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of Aamin ambulance service, told AFP two people were killed and twelve others wounded in the blast.

Other witnesses said they had seen three killed.

“I saw the bodies of three people among them a military woman,” said witness Mohamed Saney.

“Several vehicles were destroyed in the blast and ambulances rushed to the scene to collect wounded people.”

Al-Shabaab is fighting to overthrow the internationally backed government in Somalia, but has also carried out attacks in neighboring Kenya, which has deployed troops as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia.

The Shabaab were chased out of Mogadishu in 2011 by the 22,000-strong African Union mission AMISOM, and have had to abandon most of their strongholds, but they still control vast rural areas and remain the key threat to peace in Somalia.

On April 17, the group claimed responsibility for a car bomb in Mogadishu that killed four people. The bomb detonated along the busy Maka Al-Mukarama road despite a recent increase in police checkpoints in the capital.

On March 28, a car bomb ripped through a restaurant on the Maka Al-Mukarama road, killing 15 people just days after Shabaab gunmen attacked a complex housing government ministries, killing 11 people including the deputy labour minister.

There have also been several smaller blasts in the capital.

When a motorbike convoy of Boko Haram fighters invaded Baga in north-east Nigeria last December, residents feared the very worst. Watching the gunmen roll in, they recalled Boko Haram’s last seizure of the town in 2015, when hundreds of their men were slaughtered and their women kidnapped as “bush wives”, like reported by telegraph.co.uk.

This time, though, the Hells Angels’ style motorcade did not bring the usual orgy of rape, murder and pillage. “They didn’t beat anyone, they just said that we should stay where we were,” said Mansour Yusuf, 44, a father of nine. “But they also said we were free to leave if we wanted to.”

Mr Yusuf took no chances, fleeing along with thousands of other Baga residents to the better-defended town of Monguno, where Nigerian troops have dug a protective trench around the town.

That he is alive to tell the tale, however, does not speak of any new tender-heartedness on Boko Haram’s part. Instead, the “hearts and minds” strategy is all part of the long-term game being played by the new Isil-allied faction of Boko Haram.

Known officially as Islamic State’s West Africa Province, or ISWAP, the group has gained a firm foothold in the past year, confounding claims by President Muhammadu Buhari that the insurgency is facing defeat.

Focusing on military rather than civilian targets, they have mounted devastating, well-organised attacks on isolated army bases, including one last November in which up to 100 soldiers died.

The group declared fealty to Isil in 2015, splintering from the rival Boko Haram faction led by Abubakr Shekau, the man notorious for the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in 2014.

While Shekau revelled in indiscriminate brutality – he boasted of slaughtering people “like chickens” – ISWAP has tried to build turf by courting rather than cowing the civilian population.

Massacres of entire villages have been avoided, as has the use of women and children as suicide bombers. To sweeten the pill of its religious dogma, it tries to present itself as a force for equality and social justice.

“When they came into Baga, they promised that they would take the food stocks from all the influential men in the community and share it with us,” said Abdullahi Mohammed, 42, another fisherman who fled to Monguno. “They said: ‘the government does nothing for you, we are here to relieve your suffering’.”

There are limits to the group’s charm offensive, however. Captured soldiers and civilians suspected of spying can still expect torture and execution. Last year, the group also kidnapped and murdered two Nigerian Muslims working as nurses for the Red Cross, describing them as “apostates”.

One man in Monguno showed the Telegraph an ISWAP propaganda video, showing two relatives who had been kidnapped by the group during the attack on Baga. “They were working for the civilian joint task force (an anti-Boko Haram vigilante group,” he said. “They’ll probably be killed now.”

Just how close ISWAP’s links are to Isil’s core leadership in the Middle East is unclear: most experts doubt it gets much logistical help. But with Isil now in disarray in both Iraq and Syria, Nigerian army commanders claim that foreign jihadists are already swelling its ranks.

“We have battle encounters where some of the corpses we have seen on the ISWAP side have been either white or North African – I’ve seen a couple myself,” one senior Nigerian army officer told The Telegraph. “There seems to have been influx of non-locals into this sect, and we think it may account for some of the ambitious attacks they have carried out.”

Mr Mohammed and Mr Yusuf now live in tents in a vast aid camp in Monguno, along with nearly 150,000 other people made homeless by the crisis. Many have fled towns that the Nigerian army had previously declared safe.

Edward Kallon, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, said more landed was needed to build shelters and sanitation facilities. “This is crucial ahead of the upcoming rainy season, as many people are without shelter or living in overcrowded conditions that could lead to serious disease outbreaks like cholera.”

Although Monguno itself is guarded by a Nigerian army garrison, the empty desert that surrounds it is no-man’s-land. For aid workers, the town is only accessible via a UN helicopter service.

The six-foot-deep trench that runs round Monguno’s perimeter does not stop Boko Haram trying to attack. The night before The Telegraph visited, two local boys were reported to have been abducted.

“If you go across that trench and walk for just half an hour, you will start to meet Boko Haram fighters,” Mr Yusuf added.

According to US government estimates, ISWAP now has around 3,500 fighters, mostly around the Lake Chad basin, compared to around 1,500 for Shekau’s faction, which are based in the Sambisa Forest.

The strength of the two groups shows just how deadlocked the conflict has become, after a decade in which an estimated 27,000 people have been killed and two million forced to flee their homes.

The crisis is a sore point for Mr Buhari, who was re-elected in February despite criticism of his record against Boko Haram. Frontline Nigerian troops complain that vast amount of the money allocated to the war budget is siphoned off by corrupt officers, leaving them undermanned and outgunned.

On a visit to Nigeria earlier this month, the Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, warned that Nigeria was being “massively destabilised” by the conflict, and that Isil would be “looking to make their presence felt now they have lost their territory.”

He hinted that Britain would offer extra military help if the Nigerian army could improve its human rights record – a view that is unlikely to have gone down well with his hosts.

Amnesty International has repeatedly accused troops of brutality and arbitrary detentions – much to the irritation of the government, which claimed last year that the rights group seemed to care more about Boko Haram than its victims. That frustration is shared by those manning the frontlines up at Monguno.

“These people who criticise us aren’t up here doing the fighting, losing their lives or seeing how brutal Boko Haram are to civilians,” said the Nigerian army officer. “This is a vicious war, and it isn’t fair to say that we are as bad as the militants.”

Islamic State militants in West Africa are gaining the upper hand, carving out a “proto-state” in northern Nigeria where government forces have been overwhelmed by attacks, U.S. military officials and security analysts say, like reported by stripes.com.

ISIS-West Africa, which broke away from the militant group Boko Haram three years ago, continues to launch high profile attacks that have placed the Nigerian military “under tremendous strain,” according to Stuttgart-based U.S. Africa Command.

Now, the group appears to be building on its battlefield gains in northeast Nigeria and the borderlands in the Lake Chad region, from where they have launched cross-border attacks in places like Niger.

“Additionally, the group is also attempting to replace state institutions for the population under its control,” said Samantha Reho, an AFRICOM spokeswoman, in an updated assessment of the terrorist group.

A concern is that the group’s affiliation with the Islamic State has the potential to provide access to “funds, fighters, weapons, or other assistance from other components of the self-described Islamic State,” Reho said.

AFRICOM’s latest threat assessment echoes the findings in a new report by the International Crisis Group, which said ISIS-West Africa has succeeded in distinguishing itself from other militant groups and the Nigerian government itself when it comes to gaining the trust of local populations.

“It digs wells, polices cattle rustling, provides a modicum of health care and sometimes disciplines its own personnel whom it judges to have unacceptably abused civilians,” said the ICG report released last week.

The militants also impose taxes, which are generally accepted by communities under the group’s control, the report found. The focus on providing services has given a boost to recruitment and popular support that has resulted in a “jihadist proto-state,” it said.

ISIS-West Africa is estimated to have between 3,500-5,000 fighters. Since last August, they have overrun dozens of Nigerian army bases and killed hundreds of soldiers.

AFRICOM, in its 2019 posture statement, acknowledged that Nigeria has faced “multiple setbacks” as it battles ISIS-West Africa, which “has seized military bases and materiel, including armored vehicles, weapons, and ammunition.”

With the Nigerian military under increased pressure, members of a multinational task force composed of regional militaries need “to increase their commitments, resources, troop deployments,” to counter the extremist group’s momentum, AFRICOM said.

For its part, the command says it continues to provide training to regional militaries involved in the fight against militants. The U.S. military also plans to open a new drone base in neighboring Niger later this summer, from where it will be positioned to conduct more intelligence gathering missions.

Still, ISIS-West Africa’s continued rise comes as the U.S. has reduced the number of special operations troops in the region, where four U.S. soldiers were killed during an ambush in Niger in 2017. The U.S. has cut about 300 counterterrorism troops, mainly in western Africa, in connection with a strategy shift that calls for more focus on great-power competition, AFRCIOM’s Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said last month.

However, some analysts say the effort to counter the militant group’s expansion will require more than just military power. Governments in the Lake Chad area need to find a way to deal with food and water shortages and access to health care if they are to compete with Islamic State’s local appeal, the ICG report said.

“The deeper it (ISIS-West Africa) sinks its roots into the neglected communities of northeastern Nigeria, the more difficult it may be to dislodge,” the report said.

A Nigerian soldier was killed and several injured in two attacks on the United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping Mission in Mali, UN officials confirmed according to thenationonlineng.net.

Gunmen attacked the UN troops in Timbuktu in the North of the country, where several groups of militants are active, according to Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.

The peacekeeper, who was killed, was a Nigerian, as were three of those injured.

Three soldiers from Chad were injured in Tessalit in the northern Kidal region near the border with Algeria when their vehicle drove over an explosive device.

Condemning the violence and expressing his condolences to the family of the killed soldier, Guterres said such attacks on UN soldiers could be considered war crimes under international law.

Mali has experienced sporadic attacks by armed groups since a 2012 coup that helped separatist rebels and groups associated with al-Qaeda gain a foothold in the country’s restive North.

A UN peacekeeping mission has been active in Mali since 2013.

There have been repeated attacks on the mission in the North of the country by the militants, while ethnic conflicts in the centre flare up regularly.

A delegation from the Kenyan military is sharing experience on how the Cameroon military engineering corps has taken over road construction projects in Boko Haram terrorism prone areas to use the example and develop areas of its territory threatened by Al-Shabab which they say is still a threat. The Kenyan delegation has been in Cameroon for several days, like reported by voanews.com.

A Cameroon military engineering corps compactor is constructing a portion of the road linking its northern border town of Kousseri to the Chadian capital Ndjamena and Borno state in northeastern Nigeria.

Colonel Jackson Kamgain, director of Cameroon military engineering corps, says they re-launched the World Bank-sponsored project in March 2018 after it had been abandoned for four years.

He said since independence in 1961, the Cameroon military engineering corps has participated actively in the development of all localities and insures that major projects in conflict zones are not abandoned unlike in many other countries where military engineering departments concentrate only on making access easy for troops in areas of war or conflicts.

The road project was interrupted in 2014 following an assault on the base camp of the Chinese road contractors in which 10 of their workers were kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram rebels. The kidnappers also stole 10 vehicles and a container of explosives. The workers escaped but road construction companies refused to resume work there for fear of the terrorists,

The government of Cameroon convinced project funders that its military engineering corps could construct the road even while the war against Boko Haram was raging. The World Bank provided about $125 million for the project, which is to be completed in 24 months.

General Mohamud Muhamed Ali, governor of Kenya’s Marsabit region and head of the 17-man Kenyan delegation of military and officials from the ministry of transport, said they came to Cameroon to learn from the Central African state’s experience.

“The military was challenged with a very very unique situation which is nor very normal in their line of duty. Because of serious level of insecurity where contractors have not been able to show any interest to undertake major construction work in the area infested by Boko Haram, they showed leadership and undertook that serious national project,” he said.

Ali said the Kenyan government’s plan to link the country with Somalia by constructing a link road to increase trade between the two countries has been facing threats from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab insurgency.

In April 2019, the International Crisis Group reported that since 2015, al-Shabab has conducted over one hundred small-scale assaults in the north east of Kenya, killing dozens of soldiers and police, mostly with roadside bombs.

Kenyan General James Gitiba, who was also in Cameroon, said African militaries will contribute more to reducing pain and suffering in the continent’s several conflict zones if they also embrace development initiatives that go beyond simply fighting enemies.

“Most militaries in Africa are known for the various basic function of enhancing mobility which is basically clearing a route for the troops to pass and also survivability. So for Cameroon this is a milestone and I think I could also urge other friendly countries to come here and learn,” he said.

Soldiers from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger, part of the multi-national joint task force of the lake Chad Basin Commission, have been fighting Boko Haram terrorism that began in northeastern Nigeria 9 years ago and has left 25,000 people dead and forced more than 2.6 million others to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

Somali Islamist insurgents are making their own explosives, according to a confidential U.N. report seen by Reuters, as they mount more frequent and deadly attacks.

The findings are a blow for internationally backed efforts to fight the al Shabaab insurgency, which has repeatedly carried out attacks in East Africa and launched dozens in Somalia this year despite a dramatic increase in U.S. air strikes.

“For the first time, post-blast laboratory analyses … indicate a clear shift in al Shabaab construction methods, away from the use of military-grade explosives and toward HME (home-made explosives,” said a confidential report by the U.N. panel of experts on Somalia, which was seen by Reuters.

“Information from a range of Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts suggests a probable connection between the development of HME by al Shabaab and the recent increased frequency of major attacks in Mogadishu.”

The analysis was based on at least 20 attacks since July 2018, the report said.

It specify who did the analysis, but footnotes cited the U.N. Mine Action Service, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and experts who were not named but only identified by the dates on which they were interviewed.

The U.N. panel declined to comment, and the two organizations did not respond to questions from Reuters.

Somali government officials could not be reached for comment. Lt Col Charles Imbiakha, spokesman for the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM, said it could not comment because it had not seen the report.

Al Shabaab, which wants to rule Somalia in line with a strict interpretation of sharia law, has carried out at least 19 attacks with vehicle-borne bombs that have killed more than five people in Mogadishu since September, the report found.

Hitherto, the insurgency has mostly relied on military-grade explosives, laboriously harvested by specialists from ordnance such as mines or mortars captured from soldiers or peacekeepers.

But the attacks have become more frequent, or in some cases more dramatic – most notably the truck bomb that killed more than 500 people in October 2017 at a junction where street vendors were selling petrol.

Experts have long suspected that that bomb may have used some home-made explosives, but no evidence had been made public.

The U.N. panel report also does not offer evidence but notes that al Shabaab would have needed explosives from approximately 6,000 mortars to carry out a blast of that size.

It said al Shabaab bombmakers were now mixing highly explosive nitroglycerine with ammonium nitrate or potassium nitrate – both used in fertilisers – and charcoal, although it did not say where they were being obtained.

A raid on an underground site in Mogadishu last month recovered components and chemicals that included aluminum paste, which can enhance the thermal effect of a detonation, the report said.

There are no public statistics on bombings in Somalia. The U.S. Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, part of the Pentagon, said it did not track bombings and the Somali government does not release statistics.

Boko Haram terrorist has carried out late night attacks on Shuwa village in Madagali Local Government Area, Adamawa, like reported by
saharareporters.com.

Residents of the village confirmed the attack on the village while adding, “many are fleeing the village to avoid being killed.”

It was gathered that while the residents fled their homes, the terrorist group torched homes and shops of the villagers.

To avoid a similar attack, residents of Duhu and Gulak have abandoned their homes to rescue themselves from danger.

The renewed attack is coming two days after the chief of army staff, Tukur Buratai attributed the insecurity in the country to politicians who lost the 2019 general elections seeking revenge.

A youth recruited while watching football. A Catholic school graduate. Girls desperate for cash and jobs.

The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency is using some unconventional accomplices to step up attacks beyond Somalia’s borders, like reported by reuters.com.

January’s assault on an office and hotel complex in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, was the first to be led by a someone who is not an ethnic Somali since al Shabaab began major cross-border operations in 2010. Twenty-one people were killed.

The attack’s leader, Ali Salim Gichunge, nicknamed Farouk, was a 26-year-old Kenyan who attended a Catholic school and whose largely Christian Meru ethnic group has no ties to Somalia. He led four other assailants, including at least one non-Somali used as a suicide bomber, Kenyan security officials said. All died in the attack.

They are among a growing number of Kenyans with no family links to Somalia drafted by the militants in recent years, according to relatives, security officials and analysts.

Widespread poverty and unemployment mean al Shabaab can tempt recruits by offering cash or promises of work, researchers who interviewed defectors said. Even small gifts have lured some young men, their families said.

These new recruits have expanded the militants’ reach and complicated efforts by Kenyan security forces to thwart them.

“In the past, the security forces concentrated their efforts in parts of the country that are Muslim majority, Muslim-dominated,” said Murithi Mutiga, a project director for the International Crisis Group think-tank. “Now it’s much harder because al Shabaab has shown its adaptability by recruiting from outside the traditional areas.”

At the same time, al Shabaab has expanded operations from Somalia into East Africa, where it has shown it can hit high-profile targets, such as the offices of Western multinational companies.

FOOTBALL, DRUGS AND MOTORBIKES
Gichunge, the son of a Kenyan military officer, was radicalized while working at a hotel Internet cafe in Isiolo town, his sister told Reuters.

“It all started there. He was able to access new materials online, go to Facebook. He started studying Arabic language and all sorts of things,” Amina Sharif said.

His Muslim family had sent him to a mission school in Isiolo, a dusty northern town that is a gateway to three vast, arid counties neighboring Somalia.

Many in Isiolo were reluctant to discuss him, fearing police attention. But some said al Shabaab recruiters had been targeting young, unemployed men from outside the ethnic Somali community there for years.

Abdi Bidu, 53, said smooth-talking recruiters befriended his son Boru, then 20, three years ago while the young man was watching European football matches at video parlors. They offered cigarettes, motor-bike rides and khat, a mildly narcotic leaf, he said.

The Bidu family are ethnic Boranas, a religiously mixed community not previously associated with Islamist violence.

Police caught Boru trying to join al Shabaab near the Somali border in 2017, his father said. The young man went to court, but authorities inexplicably dropped the charges.

His father keeps him at home now, forbidding him to use the phone. Bidu refused to allow Reuters to speak to his son, fearing a backlash.

“There is a big problem in Isiolo,” Bidu said. “Many have been persuaded to join the militants. Many others have been caught by authorities and returned.”

He said he knew three other families whose sons were recruited. Parents feel angry and helpless, and want the government to step up security.

Martin Kimani, Kenya’s chief counter-terrorism official, said statistics on al Shabaab recruitment are classified.

But a USAID-funded study in 2018, quoted in a local government strategy document, estimated the group had recruited about 200 young men in the county to which Isiolo belongs since 2013.

Another 2018 survey asked 190 young Kenyans and 23 community leaders about violent extremism in Isiolo, neighboring Garissa county, the coastal counties of Kwale, Kilifi and Mombasa, and Nairobi. Seventy percent of respondents had a family member, close peer or neighbor involved in such activities, including recruitment, the British-funded study found.

SOPHISTICATED MESSAGING

Al Shabaab grew out of a political movement that used Islamic courts to impose order on war-ravaged Somalia. U.S.-backed Ethiopian soldiers defeated the Islamic Courts Union in 2006, but its youth wing split off and launched an insurgency.

Al Shabaab pledged loyalty to al Qaeda four years later, as the insurgency battled African Union peacekeepers in Somalia.

Kenya sent troops there in 2011 after al Shabaab started recruiting and kidnapping on Kenyan soil. Two years later, the insurgents massacred 67 people at Nairobi’s Westgate mall.

As al Shabaab morphed from a nationalist insurgency into an al Qaeda franchise, it increased its messaging to other nationalities.

The first such outreach came after it killed 76 people watching the World Cup football final in twin suicide attacks in Kampala in 2010. Al Shabaab released a video threatening further attacks from militants who “speak your language and walk your streets”.

Since then, the group’s messaging has grown more sophisticated.

Kenya’s 2012 election was denounced in a press release and radio statement as a tool for infidels. Ahead of the 2017 election, the group released seven videos in local languages.

In one video, eight al Shabaab fighters from Kenya spoke about grievances specific to their ethnic groups, such as land-grabbing on Kenya’s coast, according to a 2019 report by the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.

Other videos discussed the rising price of flour, or used graphics and statistics to build an economic case for Kenyan troops to leave Somalia.

“Religious ideology … is entirely absent,” the report said. “It seeks to relate to educated, non-Muslim audiences.”

COUNTER RADICALIZATION

Kenya launched counter radicalization programs in 2014.

Reuters attended one meeting organized by a grassroots peace group two weeks after the January attack. Fifteen parents who feared their sons had been recruited met at Isiolo’s dilapidated main police station. Organizers asked not to be named.

Over samosas, boiled eggs and milky tea, police explained they needed information to thwart the militants. The police had been criticized after previous attacks for making mass arrests and hauling in suspects’ families for questioning. This was a softer approach.

“These meetings encourage us … We are not alone,” said a mother whose son disappeared three years ago. She is furious at Islamist recruiters she blames for targeting her son.

“We don’t know them. If we knew, we would lynch them,” she said.

NEW TARGETS

About two hours drive west from Isiolo, officials in Nyeri town say al Shabaab recruiters have penetrated one of its biggest slums.

The central Kenyan town, far from traditional militant hotspots along the Somali border and the coast, is a staging point for Mount Kenya hikers and home to the grave of Boy Scouts founder Lord Baden-Powell.

“It is not (only) people of Somali origin; we also have Kikuyu who have become members of the al Shabaab movement,” said Fredrick Shisia, the county commissioner.

The recruiters were mainly local Kikuyus who had converted to Islam, two intelligence sources in Nyeri told Reuters.

Shisia declined to provide figures on recruitment but confirmed that promises of cash and gifts are often made, sometimes under false pretences.

One female recruiter in the city of Mombasa approached a tailor who was struggling to feed her family and offered the woman 30,000 shillings ($300) to make dresses, according to a 2018 study by Fathima Badurdeen, a researcher at the Technical University of Mombasa.

When the woman went to deliver the dresses near the Somali border, she was seized and taken to an al Shabaab camp in Somalia, the report said. It did not say what happened next or how she escaped.

Others were lured to Somalia for as little as 3,000 shillings ($30), said Badurdeen.

The first female-led attack in Kenya came in September 2016. Three women entered a Mombasa police station, stabbed an officer and set off a petrol bomb before being shot dead.

Gichunge’s wife, Violet Kemunto, was another non-traditional recruit.

The Nairobi-born woman from the mainly Christian Kisii ethnic group described herself as an al Shabaab bride on social media. Police believe she has fled to Somalia.

Islamic State on Thursday, May 16 claimed fighters from its West Africa Province affiliate carried out two attacks in western Niger earlier in the week, like reported by thedefensepost.com.

In a statement, ISIS said ISWAP fighters ambushed Niger Army soldiers in Tongo Tongo, near what it described as “the artificial border with Mali,” on Tuesday, claiming that in clashes with “light, medium and heavy weapons,” 40 soldiers were killed and wounded, and three vehicles were damaged.

The Niger Army has said that 28 soldiers were killed when a military patrol was ambushed Tuesday afternoon near the village of Tongo Tongo in the western Tillaberi region near the border with Mali.

The Islamic State statement also claimed an attack on “Niger security forces in the vicinity of” Koutoukale prison on Monday, claiming that “many” were killed and injured.

On Monday, Niger authorities said they had foiled a “terrorist attack” at the high-security Koutoukale prison. One soldier injured in the attack later died. The Niger air force intervened, forcing the attackers to flee towards the Mali border, ActuNiger reported.

The prison was previously attacked in October 2016 and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara claimed responsibility.

ISIS claims for ISWAP attacks have previously been restricted to northeast Nigeria, as well as neighboring areas of Niger and Chad around Lake Chad. Attacks carried out by ISIS affiliates in the Sahel have previously been attributed to Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

Niger faces insurgency on two fronts: the southeastern Diffa region near Lake Chad is increasingly frequently hit by Nigeria-based militants, primarily the ISWAP faction of Boko Haram. Mali-based militants, some linked to al-Qaeda, are active in the west of the country and the wider Sahel region.

Boko Haram split into two factions in mid-2016. One, led by long-time leader Abubakar Shekau, is notorious for suicide bombings and indiscriminate killings of civilians. Shekau pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in March 2015, but ISIS central only gives formal backing to the other faction, which it calls Islamic State West Africa Province.

The ISWAP faction, which largely focuses on attacking military and government targets, was led by Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi, but in March, audio recordings revealed that ISIS appointed Abu Abdullah Idris bin Umar, also known as Ibn Umar al-Barnawi, as leader. ISIS has not yet made a public statement confirming the change.

The bodies of 11 missing Niger soldiers have been discovered after an ambush by armed men killed 17 of their colleagues on patrol near the Mali border, security sources said according to timeslive.co.za.

“We have confirmation that the dead bodies of the eleven missing soldiers have been found, bringing the death toll to 28,” a source said late Wednesday.

The military patrol was ambushed on Tuesday near the village of Tongo Tongo in the western Tillaberi region, sources said.

One of the military vehicles had set off an explosive device.

A source referred to what happened as a “terrorist attack”.

Several troops were also injured and evacuated to the capital Niamey, a different source told AFP.

According to the news site Actuniger, a patrol of 52 Niger soldiers happened upon a group of heavily armed men at Baley Beri, near Tongo Tongo. Heavy fighting ensued, lasting more than two hours.

Twenty-two soldiers made it back to their base at Ouallam in three vehicles, while the rest were unaccounted for, it said, citing local and security sources.

This is the same region where four American and five Niger soldiers were killed in a jihadist attack in October 2017.

Niger is one of a number of poor, fragile countries in the Sahel region that have been hit by a jihadist revolt.

Different jihadist groups operate in the country’s west and north, and Boko Haram from Nigeria in its southeast.

The country is part of the so-called G5 Sahel group set up to manage a coordinated response to the jihadist insurgency.