Explosions at the capital’s airport, gunfire near the presidential palace and other clashes threw the West African country of Niger into confusion on Saturday, as renegade soldiers assaulted key sites and the authorities fought to keep control.
Niger’s defense ministry said it was not immediately clear who led the attacks or what their aims were. The government, in a brief statement, did not identify them or mention a death toll.
But the attacks on power centers left Niger’s ruling junta deeply shaken. It was only three years ago that a military commander ousted Niger’s democratically elected president in a coup, and Islamist militants have repeatedly attacked the country’s main airport this summer alone.
As of early Sunday morning, President Abdourahmane Tchiani — the general who led the 2023 coup — was believed to be inside the presidential palace, and his presidential guards were thought to have wrested control of the airport.
Because of the scale of the fighting, analysts said the attackers may have been members of Niger’s special forces.
The Ministry of Defense said that a strategic military base called Air Base 101, which hosts Russian mercenaries and some Italian forces, was one of the “sensitive sites” attacked in the area of the capital, Niamey. That status of the base early Sunday was not immediately clear.
The operation began around 1 a.m. and continued until morning,” said a former Nigerien diploma, speaking on condition of anonymity because of potential reprisals by the government. The diplomat said that the attacking soldiers had for a time seized the airport and reportedly held Russian mercenaries hostage at the air base.
The defense ministry said that the “prompt response” of security forces made it possible to “contain this disturbance” and to “gradually regain control” of the contested sites.
Three analysts said that while the capital was far from stable, it appeared the authorities were slowly gaining control.
“The situation remains very uncertain and evolving,” said Beatrice Bianchi, an adviser for the Sahel-Sahara Security Strategies Centre, a research group based in Dakar. “But the latest information we have is that the presidential guard forces have the upper hand, and a lot of the mutineers who had barricaded themselves inside Air Base 101 have been killed,” she added.
Niger’s military leaders, like those in the neighboring countries of Mali and Burkina Faso, seized power in the name of a lack of security and promising to end jihadist insurgencies that have engulfed much of the region in recent years. Many of these leaders have cut ties with longstanding Western partners, including France, and embraced Russia instead.
But the Sahel has still spiraled into violence.
Niger is hemmed in by threats along virtually all of its borders, from Libya in the north, to Nigeria in the south, and Burkina Faso to the west. A range of extremist and militant groups operate in the region, including Boko Haram, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISAWP).
Focusing on two of those in the country’s west could lead to neglecting threats coming out of Libya, said Héni Nsaibia, a senior West Africa researcher at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. And focusing on elements from Libya could lead to overlooking groups like Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin, he said.
“They are always trying to kind of do a Whac-a-Mole, being everywhere at the same time,” he said. “That has really contributed to kind of weakening them and also stretching the forces.”
In June, militants from JNIM, an Al Qaeda affiliate, attacked the main airport in Niamey, killing at least 11 soldiers and two civilians. It was the second such strike on the facility in six months. In January, militants from the Islamic State in the Sahel launched a coordinated assault on the same airport.
Analysts say the main trigger for the recurring coups and mutinies is the failure of the governments to address the jihadist and separatist insurgencies, which continue to inflict heavy casualties on the military.
The violence and its toll have worsened since the coup, analysts said, adding that anger was rising about the government’s handling of the conflict.
“When a soldier gets killed and doesn’t get even the basic honors or acknowledgments, it also creates a lot of nuisance among the rank and file,” Mr. Nsaibia said. “The authorities hush up things or conceal the truth for the general public.”
That simmering anger in the military has fueled speculation about the motives in this weekend’s attacks. Mr. Nsaibia said he was reluctant to call it an attempted coup, as opposed to a mutiny or an attempt “to kind of destabilize the regime.”
But Ms. Bianchi said she would classify it as a coup attempt.
“The line between the two are tight,” she said. “There are mutinies in the past. But none got to this level of violence.”
