PARIS – Niger’s President says that Pakistani and Afghan jihadis are in northern Mali and are using it as a training ground for terrorist recruits.
Mahamadou Issoufou, in an interview Thursday on television station France 24, said Niger has seen evidence that Middle Eastern jihadis are training Islamists within Mali’s rebel-occupied North to operate across the West Africa region.
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No further confirmation of these claims was immediately available.
Three months ago, a junta-led coup toppled the democratically-elected Malian government, pushing the country into instability.
Issoufou said that since then, Boko Haram – a radical Islamist sect – has set up training camps in a strategic town, Gao, in the north.
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