Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum on Thursday called for Nigeria to help create a regional military task force to combat insecurity in the Sahel region.

Nigeria's neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso are struggling to contain Islamic State and Al-Qaeda aligned militant insurgencies that have spread across their territories.

Nigeria already helped establish the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) for the Lake Chad region, involving the armed forces of Chad and Niger and others to battle Boko Haram militants there.

"We want to replicate this kind of model in countries of Sahel," Bazoum said in a statement from Nigeria's presidency after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.

"Why? Because, this model has allowed us in the Lake Chad basin to address a common threat."

He said Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy and a regional powerhouse, helping organise a similar model for the Sahel would reduce the financial burden to fight militants there.

Niger is attempting an initiative to talk to jihadists whose attacks have battered the country's southwest, as fears grow of a new wave of bloodshed.

The impoverished Sahel nation has been fearing a new onslaught in its Tillaberi region since France announced its troops would quit neighbouring Mali.

Tillaberi is located in the flashpoint "three borders" zone of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, where jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) operate.

In neighbouring Burkina Faso, more than 2,000 people have died, according to an AFP tally, while the country's emergencies agency says more than a million and a half people have fled their homes since a militant insurgency began there in 2015.

Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world, and its army is badly equipped and lacking training to deal with more mobile and determined jihadist forces.

Jihadist-hit Mali gets combat helicopters from Russia
Bamako (AFP) March 31, 2022 - Mali's junta-dominated government has taken delivery of combat helicopters from Russia to help its army fight a bloody jihadist insurgency, an AFP journalist saw.

Defence Minister Sadio Camara late Wednesday formally received two helicopters, radar and other equipment brought by a Russian transport plane to a military base at Bamako airport.

The delivery adds to at least four helicopters and weapons provided by Russia under closer ties forged by rebel colonels who seized power in 2020.

Russia has also supplied what are officially described as military instructors -- personnel that France says are operatives from Russia's Wagner security arm.

Mali's rapprochement with the Kremlin has prompted French forces and their European allies to announce their exit from the country.

They have been helping the impoverished Sahel nation fight a decade-old jihadist campaign that has claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.

On its website, the Malian army said the new consignment was "the fruit of a sincere and very long-running partnership" with Moscow.

The equipment comprised "combat helicopters, the latest radars and much other material needed for the fight against terrorism and extremism."

An AFP journalist saw two helicopters and at least five transport trucks.

Colonel Camara said the equipment included a 59N6-TE radar, "capable of detecting in 3D objects flying at a speed of up to 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) per hour."

"Today, we can say with pride that our army is able to operate completely independently, without asking for help from anyone," he said, referring to air support provided by foreign armed forces, notably France.

No details have been provided about the terms under which the weapons are being supplied.

Camara went to Moscow in March with air force chief Colonel Alou Boi Diarra, in an unadvertised trip that coincided with the early days of the war in Ukraine.

They discussed the supply of additional military gear, two military sources told AFP at the time.

Mali was among 35 countries that abstained in the UN General Assembly vote in March that condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine by an overwhelming majority and demanded the Kremlin immediately halt its operations.

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