New jihadist attack bloodies Niger ahead of polls

Seven troops and 11 suspected jihadists have died in clashes in a troubled western region of Niger ahead of elections this weekend, the defence ministry said Thursday.

An army patrol in the Taroun area of the Tillaberi region was ambushed early Monday by "heavily armed terrorists" travelling aboard motorbikes and other vehicles, it said in a statement, using a term that typically denotes jihadists.

The country, the poorest in the world by the benchmark of the UN's Human Development Index, is to stage presidential and legislative elections on Sunday.

The latest attack came less than two weeks after nearly three dozen villagers were massacred in the southeast of the country.

The statement said seven troops died and two others and a civilian were injured, while 11 attackers were killed, seven of them after the army launched a "spontaneous riposte".

"Motorbikes and weapons were seized. Followup operations are under way in the area," it said.

Map of Niger locating the Tillaberi region. By AFP (AFP)

Tillaberi is located in the so-called tri-border area, a jihadist-plagued zone where the porous borders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso converge.

Travel by motorbike has been banned there since January in a bid to prevent incursions by highly mobile jihadists riding on two wheels.

Niger is eyeing Sunday's two-round ballot as a historic moment, setting the country on course for its first peaceful handover between elected leaders since independence from France 60 years ago.

President Mahamadou Issoufou, who was elected in 2011 after the country's last coup in 2010, is voluntarily stepping down after two terms.

His designated successor, Mohamed Bazoum, 60, a former interior and foreign minister, is the front-runner in a 30-strong field of candidates.

Other prominent hopefuls are two former heads of state, Mahamane Ousmane and Salou Djibo.

Bazoum's main rival, former prime minister Hama Amadou, 70, was last month barred from contesting the vote on the grounds that in 2017 he was handed a 12-month term for alleged baby trafficking -- a charge he says was bogus.

In March, he was given a presidential pardon as he was seeing out his sentence.

Jihadist threat

Niger is being hammered in the southwest by jihadists from neighbouring Mali and in the southeast by jihadists from Nigeria, the cradle of the decade-old insurgency launched by Boko Haram.

T-shirt support: Mohamed Bazoum, the candidate for the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism, is the frontrunner in Sunday's vote. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP)

Four thousand people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger died last year from jihadist violence and ethnic bloodshed stirred by Islamists, according to the UN.

On December 12, 34 villagers were massacred in In Toumour, in the southeastern region of Diffa, on the eve of municipal and regional elections that had been repeatedly delayed because of poor security.

The government insisted that the attack in Tillaberi would not hamper Sunday's vote, for which 7.4 million people are registered.

The army will be massively deployed, the authorities say.

"Sporadic attacks will not prevent the stage of the elections," a spokesman said.

The December 12 attack triggered a three-day period of national mourning, but the elections the following day went ahead smoothly, officials say.