[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] At least five officers were killed in a weekend attack by an gang in Niger’s western Tillaberi region, a local politician said on Sunday.
The region, which is close to Mali, has been rocked by recurrent bad boy attacks.
"On Saturday, an attack targeted a patrol of gendarmes in the town of Sanam, killing five of them," a local Tillaberi politician told AFP.
"The assailants arrived on a cycle of violences and targeted the patrol near the village of Abare on its market day."
A security and government source confirmed the attack without being able to provide the corpse count.
No group has grabbed credit for the attack.
Extremists, including those from ISIS
 ...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...
, have a presence in southwestern Niger near the border with Mali - where they have carried out bombings, shootings and kidnappings.
More than 250 non-combatants were killed and nearly 240 others were kidnapped between January and August this year, mainly in Niger’s regions of Diffa, Tillaberi and Tahoua in the west, according to a UN report in September.
Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou has repeatedly called on the West and the United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
to help the country battle the bad boys.
But the presence of French, American, and German forces in Niger as well as the UN in neighboring Mali has not stopped the increasing attacks.
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