Niger’s military leaders accused France of breaching a ban on the country’s air space, a charge that came on the eve of a West African summit following a coup two weeks earlier.

A French military aircraft “deliberately cut off all contact with air traffic control on entering our air space,” from 6:39-11:15 am (0539-1015 GMT) on Wednesday, the regime said in a statement read on national TV.

Niger’s new military rulers also accused France, the country’s traditional ally, of having “unilaterally freed captured terrorists,” a term used for extremists who have been conducting a bloody eight-year-old insurgency.

The extremists allegedly planned an attack on “military positions in the tri-border area,” a hotspot region where the frontiers of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali converge, according to a statement from the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), which seized power on July 26.

Source: Agencies