Official: No police injured in attack on gendarmerie school in Niger

NIAMEY, Niger – Niger's minister of defense said that assailants on foot and in a 4x4 attempted to force their way into a school for paramilitary police in a northern suburb of the capital, but were pushed back and fled.

Defense Minister Karidjo Mahamadou said that security services have not yet determined who the attackers were. The incident at the Ecole de Gendarmerie in Niamey comes after back-to-back attacks on May 23 and June 1 by jihadists linked with al-Qaida, including twin suicide bombings which killed three dozen people.

Mahamadou said there were no casualties among the gendarmes. He said: "Faced with the tenacity and the firepower of our gendarmes, the assailants scaled the wall of the camp and fled."