Niamey, Dec 12 (UNI) At least 71 soldiers have been killed in a terrorist attack on a military base in the West Africa country.
"Twelve soldiers were also injured in the attack in Inates," the army said, calling it the the deadliest attack in several years.
No group has yet said it was behind the killings.
But militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group (IS) have staged attacks in the Sahel region this year despite the presence of thousands of regional and foreign troops.
Security analysts say the insurgency in Niger is escalating at an alarming rate.
BBC quoted Defence Minister Issoufou Katambe saying that "a large number of terrorists" had been "neutralised" during the attack, which happened on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Katambe said there had been "a fierce battle" with "several hundred" militants in Inates, not far from the border with Mali.
Local media also reported another attack on an army camp in Tahoua on Monday.
President Mahamadou Issoufou cut short a trip to Egypt to return home following the "tragedy" at the base in Inates, near the border with Mali.
In October 2017, four US soldiers and five Nigerien soldiers were killed in a jihadist ambush in Tongo Tongo, a village near the Mali frontier, not far from the site of Tuesday's attack.
The Inates camp, near the border with Mali, was also attacked in July when 18 soldiers died.
The security crisis in the region started in 2012 when separatist militants took over the northern part of Mali, triggering a French military intervention in the region to push them back. A peace deal was signed in 2015, but was not completely implemented, and new groups have since emerged and expanded to central Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
In particular, the Liptako-Gourma region, which is a stretch of land across all three nations, is now at the centre of the insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.
Earlier this week, Niger's government requested a three-month extension to a state of emergency, which was declared two years ago. Niger's army is struggling to contain the spread of armed groups.
In recent weeks, there have been increasingly bold attacks by militants.
UNI XC-RHK1741