Five soldiers from Niger and three U.S. Army Special Forces troops were killed and two wounded in an ambush on a joint patrol in southwest Niger on Wednesday, according to Nigerien and U.S. officials and like reported by reuters.com.

The five Green Berets were attacked while on a routine patrol in an area known to have a presence of insurgents, including from al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Islamic State, a U.S. official told Reuters.

It was unclear who fired on the U.S. and U.S.-backed forces, the official said. Those forces were not patrolling the area with any specific objective, such as a high-value target or rescuing a hostage, the official added.

A spokesman for U.S. Africa Command confirmed the attack after Radio France International (RFI) reported a lethal ambush near the Niger/Mali border.

“We can confirm reports that a joint U.S. and Nigerien patrol came under hostile fire in southwest Niger,” said the spokesman.

Namatta Abubacar, an official for the region of Tillaberi in Niger, said five Nigerien soldiers were among the dead.

A Niger diplomatic source said the attackers had come from Mali and had killed several soldiers, without saying whether any of the U.S. troops stationed in the West African country were among the victims.

U.S. President Donald Trump was briefed by telephone on the attack by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly while Trump flew back on Air Force One from Las Vegas, where he had been visiting victims and first responders affected by Sunday’s mass shooting.

RFI said earlier on Wednesday a counter-attack was underway.

African security forces backed by Western troops are stepping up efforts to counter jihadist groups forming part of a growing regional insurgency in the poor, sparsely populated deserts of the Sahel.

A relatively new militant group called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has claimed some of the attacks.

Geoff D. Porter, head of North Africa Risk Consulting, said that any confirmation of Islamic State’s role in Wednesday’s strike would lead to a strategic shift from Libya towards the Sahel band, stretching eastwards from Senegal to Chad.

“The emphasis … will now shift south,” he said.

The U.S. Africa Command has hundreds of soldiers deployed across the region, including at an air facility in Agadez, and offers training and support to Niger’s army in aspects such as intelligence gathering and surveillance.

Islamic State fighters killed one civilian and injured another and a police colonel in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, police saidaccording to reuters.com.

Police captain Abdifatah Ali told Reuters the colonel was walking to the police station in Bosasso when the gunmen opened fire and that suspected Islamic fighters in Somalia’s port town of Qandala claimed responsibility.

“There is a thorough inspection in the town and we shall eliminate them,” Ali said.

IS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statment on its website.

On Monday, a policeman shot dead the chief of security at an airport in Puntland.

Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991, but Puntland has been spared most of the violence. It has a dispute with the neighbouring semi-autonomous region of Galmudug that has in the past resulted in fighting.

The UN Children’s Agency says Boko Haram’s ongoing insurgency in northern Nigeria has forced the closure of more than 57 percent of schools in Borno state, leaving about 3 million children without an education as the school year begins, like reported by  ap.org.

Al Shabaab fighters killed at least 15 soldiers in an attack on a military base near Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, the militant group and Somali officials said on Friday like reported by reuters.com.

The militants used guns and car bombs to take control of the base and a nearby town, Barire, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, in an early-morning attack.

The fighters also took 11 pickup trucks mounted with machine guns, known as “technicals”, said Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman.

“The other soldiers ran helter-skelter into the woods. We now control the base and the village,” he said.

A Somali military officer put the number of dead at 15; al Shabaab said 21 were killed. The government and al Shabaab often give differing accounts of death tolls.

“There was a battalion of soldiers but it was a fierce fighting; twin suicide car bombs and hand-to-hand fighting,” Captain Osman Ali told Reuters.

“The attacked soldiers were Somali military and the special forces trained by the U.S. called Danab. There were neither AMISOM nor other foreigners there,” Ali added, referring to African Union peacekeeping troops. Reinforcements were being sent, he said.

Al Shabaab aims to topple the government in Mogadishu and impose its own strict interpretation of Islam. Somalia has been at war since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre and then turned on each other.

The al Qaeda-linked group was driven out of the capital in 2011, but it still carries out frequent attacks on security and government targets and African Union peacekeeping troops. Civilians sometimes get caught in the crossfire.

Ali Nur, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region where Barire is situated, confirmed the fighting. So did local residents.

“First we heard two huge blasts at the base and then heavy exchange of gunfire followed. Now it looks like the fighting died down,” Ali Farah told Reuters from Barire village.

Two weeks ago, al Shabaab attacked an army base at a town near the border with Kenya. Three weeks ago they struck another in the southern port city of Kismayu, killing a total of at least 43 people in the two attacks.

Nigeria’s ambassador to South Africa, Danjuma Sheni, said Nigeria was happy to have received South African support in the fight against Boko Haram, like reported by timeslive.co.za.

The revelation that South Africa had helped Nigeria with military hardware was made at a media briefing of the third session of the South Africa-Nigeria Defence Committee meeting in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Delegates from the two countries’ armed forces and commercial military stakeholders met to discuss military co-operation.

It was agreed that South Africa would help Nigeria to set up its own military industrial complex.

Secretary for Defence Sam Gulube, who led the South African delegation, said both countries struggled with their defence budgets and procurement programmes.

Jabal al-Amer and the surrounding areas of Sarif and Saraf Umrah in North Darfur state are witnessing tensions between the different branches of Rizeigat tribesmen after the killing of their sons by others who are part of the government forces combating human traffickers, like reported by sudantribune.com.

Last Friday, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said 19 people had been, killed in clashes with armed gangs involved in the human trafficking and illegal immigration on the Sudanese-Egyptian-Libyan border.

Following the statement, it was reported that a bodyguard of the tribal leader Musa Hilal, Suleiman Daoud, and 16 other people had been killed near the Libyan border during clashes with the RSF militiamen last Thursday.

The spokesman of the Revolutionary Awakening Council (RAC), Haroun Medikheir, confirmed to Sudan Tribune that tensions have increased among the relatives of those who had been “liquidated” by the RSF.

However, he denied that the involvement of the RAC militia in these tensions, saying they didn’t besiege the base of the Sudanese government militia.

Medikheir was alluding to reports about the siege of the RSF forces by more than 200 vehicles of the RAC armed elements that Musa Hilal dispatched demanding to hand over those involved in the attack on the traffickers.

The RAC official further said that the RSF General Commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, (aka Hametti) ordered his troops to withdraw from the area because of the tribal tensions.

“The government is behind this tension and Hametti did not realize that,” he said. “We advised him a lot to not bring tension and strife among the Rizeigat branches,” he added.

He said the families of the dead have accused commanders of the Rapid Support Forces who are not present in the area, pointing that now conciliators intervened to contain tensions and prevent violence.

“Also, the SRF pledged to address the situation and efforts are taking place with the relatives of the killed people,” he said.

The leader of Mahameed, a Rizeigat tribal branch, Musa Hilal was involved in the counterinsurgency campaign and was accused by human rights groups of war crimes. However, he is currently at odds with the government and opposes the merger of his tribal militia in the RSF.

A senior Somali military officer was gunned down in Mogadishu Sunday evening, security sources told VOA’s Somali service.

Gunmen armed with pistols fatally shot General Abdullahi Mohamed Sheikh Qururuh and a bodyguard as the two men were walking home from a mosque in the Somali capital, witnesses said.

The attackers walked past General Qururuh and the bodyguard, then turned and shot them from behind, the sources quoted the witnesses as saying.

Both victims died on the spot.

Qururuh was a senior army officer at Somalia’s command and control headquarters in Mogadishu. He served previously as deputy commander of logistics for the Somali army.

There no immediate claim of responsibility for the assassinations. Al-Shabab militants are believed to be involved in most such attacks on government officials.

One week ago a similar shooting in southern Mogadishu killed a senior Somali intelligence officer and his bodyguard. The attackers in that case were in a vehicle that fired on Mohamud Moallim Hassan Qoley and his bodyguard in the capital’s Dharkaynlay district. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for those killings.

In a separate incident late Sunday, two government soldiers and a civilian were killed in an Al-Shabab ambush in Somalia’s Puntland region, witnesses said.

Hospital officials in Bosaso confirmed to VOA Somali that they had received the bodies of two soldiers and one woman following the attack in Galgala Highlands, 40 kilometers south of Bosaso, a regional commercial center. Sources said five other soldiers were wounded.

Al-Shabab militants said they carried out the attack, targeting a military vehicle carrying soldiers to the Puntland base in Galgala Highlands.

At least three United Nations soldiers have been killed and five others seriously wounded by an explosive device that detonated as they were escorting a convoy in Mali, according to the West African nation’s peacekeeping mission, like reported by bernama.com.

The convoy was travelling between the towns of Anefis and Gao in Mali’s volatile north when the explosion occurred at around 07:00 GMT Sunday, a statement from the mission, MINUSMA, said, adding that the death toll was provisional.

“Our thoughts go firstly to the families and loved ones. We pledge our complete support to them during this painful ordeal,” Koen Davidse, the head of MINUSMA, said.

“The mission will use all means to ensure that justice is rendered.”

In a separate statement, the Bangladeshi armed forces said three of its soldiers had been killed and another four wounded when their vehicle hit the explosive device.

The blast came a day after Bangladeshi peacekeepers successfully fended off another armed attack, it said. On September 5, two MINUSMA peacekeepers were killed and another two seriously wounded in a similar attack on their vehicle which was part of a logistical convoy in the northeast.

There are frequent clashes between rival armed groups in northern Mali which is also a haven for jihadist activity. Since 2013, when MINUSMA was deployed in Mali, 80 peacekeepers have been killed, making it the most costly UN mission in terms of human life since Somalia (1993-1995).

In 2012, key cities fell under the control of Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups who exploited an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising, leading to a French-led military intervention and the UN deployment a year later.

Although the militants were largely ousted, much of the region is lawless and attacks have continued on UN and French forces, civilians and the Malian army.

Last month, gunmen attacked the peacekeeping force’s headquarters in the northern city of Timbuktu killing at least seven people and injuring seven others. On June 8, at least three UN peacekeepers from Guinea were killed in an assault near their base in Kidal.

The violence has also prompted five West African countries, known as G5 Sahel, to launch a new multinational force to fight armed groups in the Sahel region.

The new regional anti-terror force is set to include as many as 5,000 soldiers, with one battalion each from Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.

At the United Nations in New York, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres while condemning the latest attack reaffirmed the UN’s determination to support efforts aimed at restoring lasting peace and security in Mali and urged the Government and the signatory armed groups to expedite the implementation of the peace agreement.

“The Secretary-General recalls that Security Council resolution 2374 of 5 September 2017 provides for the imposition of sanctions against entities or individuals obstructing the implementation of the peace agreement and attacking United Nations personnel,” according to a statement issued by his spokesperson.

The Secretary-General extended his condolences to the Government of Bangladesh and to the bereaved families, and wished swift recovery to the injured.

In DHAKA, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed deep shock at the deaths of three Bangladeshi peacekeepers in an IED (improvised explosive device) blast in Mali.

In a condolence message, the prime minister recalled with deep gratitude the contribution of the Bangladeshi peacekeepers to maintaining peace in Mali.

“Their deaths are an irreparable loss to the world peace as well as Bangladesh,” she said.

The prime minister also prayed for eternal peace of the departed souls and conveyed deep sympathy to the bereaved families.

Sheikh Hasina also wished early recovery of the injured Bangladeshi peacekeepers.

Highlighting the dangers posed by terrorism in Africa’s sub-Saharan Sahel region, African leaders mounted the podium of the United Nations General Assembly today to appeal for the resources needed to make the multinational force set up to counter the scourge fully operational.

“Owing to the gravity of the situation, we must take advantage of the Secretary-General’s follow-up report to reinforce the joint multinational force’s mandate by providing it with the resources it needs to succeed in its mission,” Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré said.

In June the UN Security Council endorsed the formation the G5 Sahel joint force, comprising Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, to combat terrorism and transnational organized crime in the restive region.

“One of the major challenges is the mobilization of resources,” he said, noting that the northern regions of both his own country and neighbouring Mali have been affected by terrorism and extremism and need an urgent investment programme to lessen the vulnerability of the people living there, especially women and the young.

“The struggle against terrorism can only succeed if it is based not only on a sub-regional approach but also on the dynamic of economic development for the most vulnerable areas,” he explained.

Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba lauded the establishment of the G5 Sahel force. “It is a question of multi-dimensional long-term battle which demands inter-State cooperation and solidarity with the victims of the atrocities,” he told the Assembly.

His own country is part of a subregional anti-terrorist initiative by central African States “to combat the terrorist hydra in all its forms and whatever its motivation.”

He stressed that a military response had to be accompanied by other measures, including action to reduce the funds flowing to criminal organizations.

Mr. Ondimba also called for determined action against poaching that is decimating Africa’s fauna and flora, and its natural resources.

Comoros President Azali Assoumani called terrorism “his absolute negation of what is human [which] has become a scourge that we condemn and must fight together without mercy and on a planetary scale with all our forces.”

Decrying the association of terrorism with Islam, he said there was no Islamic terrorism, just as there is no Christian or Jewish terrorism. “Terrorists are simply barbarians,” he stressed.

“We condemn without reserve the atrocities perpetrated against minorities and communities, yesterday in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and today in Burma (Myanmar) against the Rohingya and other minorities wherever they are, whose inhuman and savage victimization is all the more shocking in that its extreme violence is directed towards the ethnic cleansing of those who have the least resources.

“I dare to hope that our Organization will know how to defend the most elementary rights of the oppressed, regardless of origin, race, sex, or belief,” he added.

The leaders also addressed a host of world issues, from climate change to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) nuclear programme, and from the need for expansion of the 15-member UN Security Council with permanent African representation to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that seek to haul hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, hunger and social ills by 2030.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea said his own country had suffered terrorism, piracy and attempted attacks from outside seeking to undermine its “peaceful and democratic system of Government, disrupt peace and stir up revolts for the benefit of fortune-seeking adventurers.”

This had led to unjust and gratuitous accusations against the country’s leaders.

He cited a whole litany of obstacles from international terrorism, extremism, xenophobia, and human trafficking to piracy, mercenary attacks, trans-border crimes and the economic crisis confronting the whole world.

“All these phenomena make it necessary to awaken a greater awareness among nations, and to promote a more direct inter-State cooperation, and undertake a dynamic and coordinated action by all nations in solidarity,” he declared.