Militant attack kills 6 Benin soldiers, army spokesperson says

A militant attack on an army position has killed six soldiers in northern Benin, where government troops are trying to curb cross-border assaults by armed Islamist groups, an army spokesperson said.

The encounter on Saturday also left 17 militants dead, spokesperson Ebenezer Honfoga told Reuters late on Sunday, without giving further details.

The attack follows the killing of dozens of soldiers in a January assault in the northern department of Alibori, which shares a border with insurgency-plagued Niger and Burkina Faso.

Benin and coastal neighbor Togo have both suffered attacks in recent years as groups linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda expanded their presence beyond West Africa’s central Sahel region to the north.