{"id":38054,"date":"2013-05-24T13:43:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T10:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=38054"},"modified":"2013-05-24T13:43:30","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T10:43:30","slug":"niger-al-qaeda-attack-20-people-dead-as-dozens-others-left-injured-in-niger-africa-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/niger-al-qaeda-attack-20-people-dead-as-dozens-others-left-injured-in-niger-africa-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Niger Al-Qaeda Attack: 20 people dead as dozens others left injured in Niger \/ Africa News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nigeria\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Al-Qaeda linked suicide bombers have struck on two separate locations in the Republic of Niger killing 20 people while leaving many injured.<\/h1>\n

Both attacks were carried out as people prepared for early morning prayers known as Fajir just after 05:00 local time (04:00 GMT).<\/p>\n

Local reporters say a military camp and a French-run uranium mine in two towns in north-west of the country were the target of the terrorists.<\/p>\n

A bomb at a barracks in Agadez killed 19, including 18 soldiers while four terrorists died in the attack and a passbyer.<\/p>\n

The attack on the French-run Somair mine, in the town of Arlit, killed one person and injured 14, its operator told local reporters.<\/p>\n

Local reporters say militant leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar was behind the attacks according to rumors making rounds in the country.<\/p>\n

These rumors were substantiated by the Mauritanian news agency Alakhbar as it quoted a spokesman for the militants as saying: “It was Belmokhtar who himself supervised the operational plans of attacks.”<\/p>\n

Another spokesman for the militants was quoted as saying that the attacks were targeted at the enemies of Islam in the Islamic Maghreb.<\/p>\n

“We attacked France and Niger because of its co-operation with France, in the war against Islam, we will intensify our attacks\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Niger Defence Minister Mahamadou Karidjo said insurgents had driven a car bomb into the military base and detonated the bomb. 18 soldiers died, 4 militants and two other civilian were hit while dozen others of the military suffered injuries, the defence minister stressed further.<\/p>\n

He added that the government has declared three days of mourning for those who died in the attack including the military personnel and the civilians.<\/p>\n

The Interior Minister Abdou Labo put the number of people wounded at the uranium site at about 50 in that attack alone.<\/p>\n

Militants in the Islamic Maghreb have increase in recent years with some blaming them for taking part in the Mali conflict.<\/p>\n

Last month, Militants in the Islamic Maghreb called for support from those in West Africa to intensify their activities in Africa.<\/p>\n

But French President Francois Hollande vowed to protect his nation’s interests and co-operate with Niger in its fight against terrorism in the Islamic Maghreb.<\/p>\n

France intervene in the Mali conflict to prevent what it described as preventing militants from destabilizing other nations in West Africa.<\/p>\n

Issaka Adams \/ NationalTurk Africa News<\/b><\/p>\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al-Qaeda linked suicide bombers have struck on two separate locations in the Republic of Niger killing 20 people while leaving many injured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,80,63,1,118,14],"tags":[52207,77153,52208,36070,52205,52210,52209],"class_list":["post-38054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-20-dead-niger-attack","tag-africa","tag-al-qaeda-niger-attack-20-dead","tag-niger","tag-niger-al-qaeda-attack","tag-republic-of-niger-al-qaeda","tag-suicide-bombers-killing-20-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}