Niger buys "spy plane" to combat Sahel militants

The government of Niger has purchased a reconnaissance plane as part of its effort to combat Islamist fighters and criminal gangs operating on its vast territory, the West African country's interior minister said on Wednesday.

Located in the arid Sahel band and with porous borders with Mali, Libya and Nigeria, smugglers and Islamic militants regularly crisscross Niger's sparsely inhabited territory.

French forces deployed in the country destroyed a convoy transporting weapons from Libya to Mali and captured fighters linked to al Qaeda earlier this month.

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