This is awful:
Niger attack: 8 people, including French aid workers, killed in an armed attack - CNN
The attack appears to have been initiated with the sole goal of killing the victims. This is in contrast to some previous attacks against foreigners where the victims were kidnapped for ransoms.
Likewise, the photo of the burned out Land Rover does not appear to show impersonal road side bomb damage, nor does the vehicle appear to have been struck by say, multiple RPGs in a largely impersonal ambush.
Instead, it is horribly possible that the victims were taken alive, then killed execution style. The combination deliberate deaths and possible personal manner of the deaths does not suggest a bandit / part time jihader group with mixed motives of terror and cash collection.
Rather, it suggests extremely hard core ISIS type terrorists. As a side note, ISIS grew in Syria by taking over less violent groups via executing the leaders and giving the rank and file one opportunity to join ISIS. The same thing might be happening in French speaking Africa.
Niger attack: 8 people, including French aid workers, killed in an armed attack - CNN
The attack appears to have been initiated with the sole goal of killing the victims. This is in contrast to some previous attacks against foreigners where the victims were kidnapped for ransoms.
Likewise, the photo of the burned out Land Rover does not appear to show impersonal road side bomb damage, nor does the vehicle appear to have been struck by say, multiple RPGs in a largely impersonal ambush.
Instead, it is horribly possible that the victims were taken alive, then killed execution style. The combination deliberate deaths and possible personal manner of the deaths does not suggest a bandit / part time jihader group with mixed motives of terror and cash collection.
Rather, it suggests extremely hard core ISIS type terrorists. As a side note, ISIS grew in Syria by taking over less violent groups via executing the leaders and giving the rank and file one opportunity to join ISIS. The same thing might be happening in French speaking Africa.