Algeria sent fighter jets to Niger to thwart ‘coup attempt’, president says

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has said his country sent fighter jets to Niger in late August to help thwart a coup attempt that shook the capital, Niamey.

Tebboune made the disclosure in excerpts from an interview with local media outlets broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the full release of the interview.

He said the warplanes were deployed because some parties had “gone too far”, adding that Niger’s Prime Minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, had been visiting Algeria and returned home shortly before the mutiny.

“For obvious reasons, this is a provocation against us … and I too will send planes and we’ll meet head-on,” Tebboune said.

He did not specify who he was referring to when he said some parties had gone too far, or whether he meant internal or external actors.

Sustained gunfire and explosions were heard in Niamey overnight from August 28 into August 29, as renegade soldiers targeted a military base at Diori Hamani International Airport, followed by attacks on the state broadcaster and presidential palace.

Niger’s Defence Minister, General Salifou Modi, said at the time that a group of military personnel had attempted to detain some of their colleagues at Air Base 101 and opened fire on strategic locations in the capital. Security forces intervened and gradually regained control of the targeted locations.

On August 30, Algeria’s Ministry of Defence said it had sent fighter jets to Niger following the unrest. It said two patrols of four Sukhoi Su-30 aircraft had landed at Niamey airport, accompanied by an air-to-air refuelling aircraft. The ministry said the deployment was at the request of Nigerien authorities to support the Nigerien army in confronting an attempt to destabilise the country.

Niger’s military government later accused France of orchestrating the failed mutiny, a claim Paris denied. Algeria and Niger share close security and military ties and a long land border, with Algiers viewing stability in the Sahel as an important component of its national security.

Zeine met Tebboune during a visit to Algeria from August 26 to 27 as head of a high-level ministerial delegation seeking to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

Credit: Aljazeera