The attack happened in the village of Theim in the Tillaberi region, at around 8:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Friday, the official told AFP.
"The toll is 17 dead and five maimed," he said.
A resident in regional capital Tillaberi said around 10 people had been killed.
Thiem is around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from three other villages where a series of attacks in May by jihadists linked to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
forced more than 11,000 inhabitants to flee.
MPs from the region called Friday for increased security measures for the area, saying that jihadists behind the wave of attacks in the vast Tillaberi region are able to operate freely in spite of strict government controls.
In one month, 98 civilians and 19 gendarmes have been killed in just three departments of the region, they said.
To combat rising attacks, Niger has declared a state of emergency, banned the movement of cycle of violence
s, regulated the sale of fuel and closed markets suspected of supplying gangs, they said.The "three-borders" region is a huge territory straddling the frontiers of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
that has long been troubled by land feuds, trafficking, desertification and fragile state presence.
The vast arid region, along with central Mali, has become the worst-hit area in the jihadists' nine-year-old campaign in the Sahel.
Thousands of people have died and tens of thousands have fled their homes.