Niger suicide bombers target Areva mine and barracks 23 May 2013 Last updated at 13:35 Suicide bombers have struck a military camp and a French-run uranium mine in two towns in north-west Niger. A bomb at a military barracks in Agadez killed at least 19 people, including 18 soldiers, Internal Affairs Minister Abdou Labo told the BBC. Four attackers also died there and a fifth is holding four army officers hostage, he said. The attack on the mine, in the town of Arlit, injured 50. The jihadist Mujao group said it had carried out the attacks. Mujao spokesman Abu Walid Sahraoui said the operations targeted "the enemies of Islam in Niger," according to AFP. "We attacked France, and Niger because of its co-operation with France, in the war against Sharia," he added, thought to be a reference to French and Nigerien involvement in combating Islamists in neighbouring Mali. Both attacks were carried out as people prepared for the early morning prayer just after 05:00 local time (04:00 GMT), BBC West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy reports. Thomas Fessy West Africa correspondent There is little doubt that these two attacks are evidence of a spill-over from the conflict in neighbouring Mali. However, although Niger shares a border with Mali, the attackers are more likely to have come through southern Libya, given the location of their targets in the country's far north. This could confirm suspicions that fighters linked to al-Qaeda had been on the move in the area. But this would also be the bloodiest attack carried out since the French started their military campaign in Mali this year. The French nuclear company Areva had recently resumed rotations for its expat staff at the uranium site of Arlit. After seven workers at the site were taken hostage - three of them have since been released - two and half years ago, Niger had deployed extra troops to secure the mine. French special forces were also reportedly sent in. But militants have just shown how determined they are to strike across the region. Niger's Defence Minister Mahamadou Karidjo said insurgents drove a car bomb into the military base at Agadez. Around two dozen people were wounded in the blast, including civilians. Abdoulaye Harouna, a resident of Agadez, told the Associated Press: "We heard a strong detonation that woke the whole neighbourhood, it was so powerful." "There is at least one remaining assailant that we are trying to capture," Mr Karidjo told the BBC. Kidnapped Further north, a suicide bomber blew up a car close to workers at the Areva-run mine at Arlit. French nuclear firm Areva said that 13 "colleagues" at the Somair plant had been wounded. "A man in military uniform driving a 4x4 packed with explosives mixed in with the Somair workers and blew up his vehicle in front of the power station at the uranium treatment facility," a mine employee told AFP news agency. He said the bomber had died in the blast. Security was stepped up at Areva's Arlit operation - one of the country's biggest uranium mines - in February. Niger provides one-fifth of France's uranium needs, according to French media. Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou said French special forces had moved in to protect the site after dozens of hostages died when Islamist militants seized a gas plant in Algeria in January. Seven workers, including five French nationals, were kidnapped from the Arlit mine by Islamist militants in 2010. Four of them are still being held and it is believed they could be in northern Mali, close to where French troops were sent to oust al-Qaeda-linked militants in January. Mujao (the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) is a splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) which operates mostly in northern Mali. It says its objective is to spread jihad to West Africa rather than confine itself to the Sahel and Maghreb regions - the main focus of AQIM.