Early Morning Gunfire Rocks Niamey Airport Vicinity in Niger Republic

Residents in Niger's capital, Niamey, reported an outbreak of gunfire early on Thursday morning near the city's main airport. This incident occurs several months following a significant jihadist assault on the same facility. An AFP correspondent was informed by a local resident that the initial shots were heard around 6 o'clock in the morning (0500 GMT). The resident, speaking via telephone, confirmed that the gunfire originated from the airport entrance and persisted for at least two hours. Another local corroborated these accounts, also indicating that the shots came from the airport's entry point.

This latest disturbance follows a major attack in January on Niamey's Diori Hamani international airport. That unprecedented assault was claimed by the Islamic State in the Sahel (EIS) and was successfully repelled by a combined force of Nigerien armed forces and their allied Russian fighters. Prior to this, jihadist violence within Niger had largely been confined to regions outside the capital city.

In the aftermath of the January attack, thousands of structures that had been illegally erected in a sprawling neighbourhood adjacent to the airport were demolished. Authorities justified these demolitions by stating that the district had been compromised by jihadists who used it as a base to execute the earlier attack. Niger, a vast nation situated in West Africa's Sahel belt, has been grappling with a decade-long struggle against armed groups affiliated with both Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, leading to persistent violence across the country.