Residents in Niamey, Niger's capital, reported hearing steady gunshots near the city's international airport early Thursday morning.
The gunfire apparently began at 6:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT), with witnesses also reporting explosions in the neighborhood. According to accounts, the disruption lasted nearly an hour.
Two eyewitnesses informed media outlets that the shooting appeared to come from near the airport's main gate, as seen on the BBC.
The incident occurred as Niger continues to deal with a long-running Islamist insurgency that has afflicted the country for more than a decade.
Niger, like neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, is now controlled by a military-led administration that took power after rising popular dissatisfaction with the authorities' inability to handle escalating instability.
