{{Reports from Niger, indicate that 22 prisoners, including Islamist militants, escaped from a prison in Niger’s capital after several gunmen attacked the jail and killed two guards, the government said on Sunday.}}<\/p>\n
The prison break comes a week after al Qaeda-linked groups raided a uranium mine and an army barracks in Niger, raising fears that the conflict in neighboring Mali could spread to other West African states.<\/p>\n
Among the 22 prisoners unaccounted for were some convicted on terrorism charges including Alassane Ould Mohamed who was serving a 20-year sentence for the murder of four Saudi Arabians and an American, the government said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“This individual is actively being sought,” Niger’s justice minister and government spokesman Marou Amadou said in the statement. “We are asking for the cooperation of the people to intercept them.”<\/p>\n
The government said two guards were killed during the raid on the prison on Saturday and three were seriously wounded, while two assailants were killed and two others arrested.<\/p>\n
Mohamed was sentenced in June 2012 for his involvement in an attack on a group of tourists on a hunting safari that killed four Saudi nationals in December 2009 and the killing of an American in a bar in Niamey in 2000.<\/p>\n
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