'Balance Of Power' Shifted In Niger's Favour: President

Tillab�ri, Niger, Sept 10 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Sep, 2021 ) :The balance of power in Niger has shifted in the army's favour against the jihadists, President Mohamed Bazoum said Friday during a visit to the country's hard-hit west.

"The balance of power has changed considerably and you will have observed that the enemy has changed its mode of operations," Bazoum said during a meeting with troops deployed in the Tillaberi region.

"They are no longer looking for you because they know what awaits them," the president said.

"They fall back on unarmed innocent people... unleash a large-scale massacre," he said.

"Everywhere they attack peasants who are in the fields of the remotest villages, the furthest from the centre where they know they have no chance of meeting our forces," the president said.

It is Bazoum's first visit since his election at the end of February to the Tillaberi region, the theatre of years of bloody attacks against civilians and soldiers mounted by jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Human Rights Watch estimated in August that more than 420 civilians have been killed since the beginning of the year in western Niger.

Since the start of the rainy season in June, attacks have been targeting mainly civilians working the land.

"We have no doubt about this battle's outcome. We have won a part of it, we will win it outright," said Bazoum who acknowledged that since 2015 the situation in the region had not stopped deteriorating.

He was due on Saturday to travel further north to the Anzorou area, where many civilians have been killed since 2020.