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Relations with France, Niger’s former colonial power, degraded after Paris stood by ousted president Mohamed Bazoum following the July coup.
“France continues to deploy its forces in several ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) countries as part of preparations for an aggression against Niger, which it is planning in collaboration with this community organisation,” Niger’s regime spokesman Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane said on Saturday.
Army officers have appeared on national television in Gabon to say they have taken power.
They said they were annulling the results of Saturday’s election, in which President Ali Bongo was declared the winner.
Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) launched air strikes against “foreign armed groups” near its border with Chad.
LNA spokesperson Ahmad Mismari said it carried out the attack on Friday after earlier having announced an operation to secure the frontier. The army hit Chadian rebel positions on the Libyan side of the border before launching an airborne assault.
Ethiopia’s military has clashed with fighters from a militia in the Amhara region, residents said on Wednesday, in an escalation of a simmering feud between the two former allies that a doctor said had caused more than a dozen injuries.
Fano, a part-time militia with no formal command structure, backed federal troops in a two-year civil war in the neighbouring Tigray region that ended with a truce last November.
Niger’s military leaders have warned against any armed intervention in the country as West African heads of state gather in Nigeria’s capital for an emergency summit to decide on further actions to pressure the army to restore constitutional order.
Heads of state of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union, also known by its French acronym UEMOA, could suspend Niger from their institutions, cut off the country from the regional central bank and financial market, and close borders.