SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Niger opens first military school in Niamey
Niamey, Oct 15 (AFP) Oct 15, 2021
Facing a spate of jihadist attacks, Niger on Friday opened its first military school in the capital Niamey to train future officers.

"We have set in place with this school the final link in the chain for training our military," President Mohamed Bazoum said at the opening ceremony.

The facility would serve as "an important link" to bolster national security in the vast landlocked state bordering Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east.

The first cohort will comprise 26 officers taken from the army, the gendarmerie and the national guard who will go through nine months of training under national instructors, school commander Abdoul Razak Ben Ibrahim said.

Bazoum said his country, notably as a neighbour of troubled Libya, had to act on security needs given its position at the heart of a region prone to terrorist activity.

He further announced the creation of an air force academy at Agadez in the north of the country and a centre to instruct 5,000 cadets a year at Tahoua in the west from next year.

Bazoum also unveiled a three-year investment of 150 billion francs (229 million euros/$266 million) in the air force.

Niamey last year announced an intended doubling over five years of military numbers from 25,000 to 50,000 and raised the military retirement age to 52 from 47 as it battles jihadist attacks which began in 2015.

Niger receives support to that end from France and the United States in terms of logistics while both countries maintain bases there.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
China Focus: Chinese scientist details first planned Mars sample-return mission Tianwen 3
NASA says it will lose about 20 percent of its workforce
Building blocks of life found in distant star system suggest origins in interstellar space

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Trump administration expected to say greenhouse gases aren't harmful
MicroCarb satellite launches to map global carbon dioxide emissions from space
Rollable solar array by GalaxySpace redefines satellite compactness and power efficiency

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Airbus CO3D satellites begin mission to generate high precision global 3D map
BlackSky to supply satellite imagery and analytics for Latin American security operations
GovSat selects Thales Alenia Space to build secure satellite for military communications

24/7 News Coverage
First wildfire images reveal FireSat's unmatched detection capabilities
MetOp Second Generation satellite fully fuelled ahead of August launch
MicroCarb satellite launch marks new era in urban carbon tracking



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.