Armed Groups

Police say three villages and a mosque were attacked, and worshippers kidnapped in central Niger State.

Armed men have kidnapped dozens of people during an attack on a mosque and surrounding villages in Nigeria’s central Niger State, survivors and police officials say.

The raiders stormed Kpenya Mosque in the Dekara district of Borgu Local Government Area at around 2pm (13:00 GMT) on Friday, after first attacking the villages of Gidan-Zana and Kpenya, police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun said on Saturday.

Abiodun told the Reuters news agency that police were aware of the kidnappings but had not received reports of anyone being killed, and that a “joint security detachment has been deployed to the area for assessment and rescue operations”.

He said police could not yet confirm the number of people who were taken.

Local residents told Reuters that more than 60 worshippers were kidnapped, but the figure could not be independently verified.

Separately, residents told the AFP news agency that people were also killed, another claim that could not immediately be confirmed.

Jibril Ahmad, a survivor of the assault on Dekara, blamed members of the Lakurawa armed group.

“Soon after finishing the normal Friday prayer, the armed group of Lakurawa, in their hundreds, wielding guns, knives and machetes, began to attack us,” Ahmad told AFP, claiming that people were “slaughtered”.

During the attack, a third group, Mahmuda, intervened and clashed with the kidnappers, allowing some abductees to escape, he said.

Federal lawmaker Jafaru Mohammed told AFP that several nearby villages were also struck.

“Some members of the Mahmuda group were against the doctrine of the Lakurawa, and when they heard of what the Lakurawa were doing, they fought them,” Mohammed said.

The attack unfolded in a region near Nigeria’s western border with Benin that has seen growing activity from local armed groups and fighters from the neighbouring region, even as the country’s 17-year armed rebellion remains concentrated in the northeast.

The violence in Niger State continued into Saturday. Resident Abdullahi Ahmad said the group returned to the area to seize more people as a “bargaining chip” in advance of an expected troop deployment, and planted landmines on the road out of Dekara.

“A man and his family who were fleeing the town yesterday were killed when their car hit a landmine planted by the terrorists. Everyone is living in fear,” he said.

Mass abductions have been a hallmark tactic of the country’s armed groups and have evolved into a lucrative, multimillion-dollar industry involving networks of both ideological and nonideological gangs across Nigeria’s northwest and central regions.

ICRC facilitates first known transfer of detainees between Congolese government and M23 rebels in North Kivu.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has released 15 prisoners and handed them over to rebels from ⁠the Congo River Alliance/March 23 movement (AFC/M23) in the east of the country.

The release was announced by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitated this first known transfer of prisoners under last year’s Qatar-mediated deal to end the fighting in the region.

The handover happened on Thursday and Friday after months of talks thrashing out the names of detainees to be freed.

An ICRC statement said the 15 prisoners agreed to be transferred before leaving the government-held eastern Congolese city of Beni in a convoy on Thursday evening.

The journey continued through Uganda before the convoy arrived in Rutshuru Territory in DRC’s North Kivu province, where the prisoners were ⁠⁠handed over to AFC/M23 on Friday, the statement added.

M23 seized the regional capitals in North and South Kivu from the Congolese government’s control in early 2025.

Stephanie Eller, head of ICRC operations in the capital ‌Kinshasa, said she hoped the transfer would pave the way for more releases.

“We hope that this ⁠operation will help bring relief ⁠to families who have been separated from their loved ones for a long time,” Eller said.

The release of detainees was one of the conditions in the Qatari-mediated agreement signed by the Congolese government and AFC/M23 in September.

Qatar welcomed the releases on Friday.

“The release of the detained persons represents an important step towards enhancing confidence between the parties and creating favourable conditions for further progress towards reaching peaceful and sustainable solutions,” Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

It added that Qatar “expresses its hope that this step will serve as an impetus for further measures that enhance confidence-building between the parties and meet the aspirations of the Congolese people for peace, development and prosperity”.

DRC, the United Nations and Western powers have repeatedly accused neighbouring Rwanda of supporting the M23 with its ‌own ‌troops and weapons as the armed group has advanced in the east, a charge Rwanda denies.

Relations begin to thaw as both countries reinstate ambassadors and reopen airspace closed to each other since April 2025.

More than a year after a diplomatic fallout, relations between Algeria and Mali are beginning to thaw, with both countries reinstating their ambassadors and reopening their airspace to one another.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced on Saturday that the country’s ambassador would return to Mali, a day after Algiers fully reopened its airspace to civilian and military aircraft travelling to and from its southern neighbour.

Issa Ousmane Coulibaly, spokesperson for Mali’s military government, confirmed in a statement that Bamako had taken reciprocal measures.

Relations between the two African nations deteriorated in April last year after Algeria said it had shot down a Malian surveillance drone for violating its airspace. Bamako disputes this, saying the drone was downed within its own borders.

The fallout between Algeria and Mali has jeopardised security in the Sahel region. Mali is a member of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), along with Burkina Faso and Niger. Both Ouagadougou and Niamey also withdrew their ambassadors to Algeria in April last year in solidarity with their ally.

The AES has experienced a surge in attacks by armed groups linked to the ISIL (ISIS) group and al-Qaeda in recent years. Many analysts argue that such groups were able to establish a foothold in the Sahel partly because of the NATO-backed overthrow of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The ousting of Gaddafi left a power vacuum that has been exploited by armed groups. Vast stockpiles of weapons belonging to forces loyal to him were looted and are believed to have been used by those groups.

Algeria has previously mediated peace talks between the Malian government and Tuareg separatist rebels waging an armed rebellion there.

However, last year’s diplomatic fallout led Algiers to step back from its role as mediator, raising concerns about Mali’s security and territorial integrity while also posing a threat to Algeria’s own internal security.

This April, Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf reaffirmed Algiers’s support for Mali’s territorial integrity, rejecting what he described as all forms of “terrorism”.

Tuareg-led armed ⁠group says it attacked northern town where Malian troops and Russian fighters are based.

Armed fighters have launched ⁠attacks in five ⁠locations across Mali, more than two months after gunmen attacked the capital and other parts of the country.

The attacks took place on Saturday in areas including ‌a northern town where government forces and Russian fighters are ⁠based, and ⁠a town south of ⁠the capital, ⁠Bamako, Mali’s military and security sources said.

The army said the attacks targeted Aguelhok, Anefis, Gao, Sevare and Kenieroba.

The AFP news agency said a prison in Kenieroba was attacked, citing residents and security sources.

It reported that the fighting in different locations started at about 5am local time (05:00 GMT).

A Tuareg-led armed ⁠group confirmed that it had attacked a northern Malian town early on Saturday.

Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesperson for the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), told the Reuters news agency that fighters from the group ⁠attacked the town of Anefis ⁠in the northeastern Kidal region.

Government and Russian troops deployed in Anefis in the wake of attacks on April 25 and 26, in which the FLA and the regional al-Qaeda ⁠affiliate seized control of Kidal town.

Ramadane also told AFP that “several positions have fallen, but fighting is still underway inside the city” of Anefis.

An Anefis resident contacted by AFP said “armed groups are in the town, but the army is still putting up resistance. The camp [there] has not yet fallen”.

Anefis and Aguelhok, both in the north, are the last remaining locations where Mali’s army maintains a presence in the Kidal region, following the April attacks.

Meanwhile, in ⁠the central city of Gao, a local official told Reuters that gunfire and rockets had been launched at a military ‌camp since before dawn. It was not immediately clear which fighters were responsible.

In Sevare, another central town, “explosions rang out … around 5am, though their origin is not yet known. Shortly thereafter, several aircraft were spotted flying over the area”, a security source told AFP.

In Kenieroba, the major prison complex was also under attack, a prisoner in the facility told AFP.

Saturday’s assault was the latest threat to the military-led government in the landlocked Sahel country where rebels staged high-profile attacks in ‌April, hitting the airport in the capital, Bamako, killing the defence minister and seizing a string of army bases in the north.

The attacks targeted a secondary school in the northeastern town of Lassa, in Borno State.

At least 37 students remain missing after gunmen raided their school in northeast Nigeria, according to local officials.

The attack occurred on Monday when assailants from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) group stormed a secondary school in the town of Lassa, in Borno State, which has faced years of violence by armed groups.

The AFP news agency reported on Tuesday that at least 37 students remain missing following the attack, which occurred while they were sitting exams.

At least three people were killed in the attack, including a soldier and a teacher, according to the military, who initially said that authorities had rescued 10 of them and that only one remained missing.

The “list of students in captivity”, showing the students’ genders and their parents’ mobile phone numbers, was shared with journalists by the area’s local government councillor, Ijagla Ijabila.

An intel source also showed AFP the same list.

Borno Commissioner for Education Lawan Abba Wakilbe told reporters in Lassa that 25 female students, 11 male students and one staff member were still being held, reported the Reuters news agency.

Abba Wakilbe added that eight people, including the school’s vice principal, have been freed.

Kidnapping for ransom, especially of students, has become a common tactic for both armed groups and non-ideological “bandit” gangs operating across the country’s conflict-hit north and centre.

While the 2014 kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls from the town of Chibok by members of Boko Haram remains Nigeria’s most infamous, school abductions continue to be prevalent across the country.

In May, gunmen kidnapped more than 40 pupils – who remain in captivity – from Borno State’s Mussa village.

That same month, armed men rounded up dozens of schoolchildren from three schools in Oyo State – a rare attack in southwest Nigeria, considered to be the safest region in the country.

Nigeria has been fighting an armed uprising since 2009, concentrated in the northeast.

While violence has waned since the peak of the conflict a decade ago, analysts have warned of an uptick in attacks since last year.