Niger president declares state of alert in north

NIAMEY, Aug 24 (Reuters) Niger's President Mamadou Tandja declared a state of alert in the country's desert north today, giving the security forces additional powers in their fight against a 7-month-old insurgency by Tuareg-led rebels.

The rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) has killed at least 45 soldiers in the region around the ancient Saharan trading town of Agadez since launching an insurgency in February to demand more economic development.

''A state of alert is declared for 3 months in the region of Agadez,'' Tandja said in a decree read on national radio.

The move gives additional powers of arrest to the security forces and allows them to detain suspects without charge well beyond the usual 48 hours.

It also restricts the movement of civilians on main routes between towns in the region, home to some of the world's largest reserves of uranium where French nuclear giant Areva operates two mines and other foreign firms are prospecting.

The announcement comes after the MNJ said it had killed 17 soldiers on Tuesday when it engaged a heavily armed military convoy including troop carriers, armoured cars, trucks carrying ground-to-ground missiles and anti-aircraft missile launchers.

The army today denied that version of events, saying it had killed seven MNJ fighters in the clash and that only one of its soldiers had been killed and seven injured.

The unrest has crippled the local economy in northern Niger, where many already lead a fragile existence as subsistence farmers in some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth.

Several civilian and army vehicles have hit mines, virtually halting road traffic and preventing produce form reaching markets. Travel between towns had already been banned after dark and foreigners must be accompanied by an army escort.

''We are in an exceptional period ... so it is absolutely normal that exceptional powers be given to the security and defence forces,'' Communication Minister Mohamed Ben Omar said.

The north of the former French colony has long been a hotbed of dissent.

Light-skinned Tuareg tribesmen waged a rebellion in the 1990s to demand greater autonomy from a black-African dominated government, with the final trigger for years of fighting a heavy-handed clampdown by the security forces.

The MNJ says the 1995 peace deal that ended that insurgency has never been fully implemented and that the region remains economically and politically marginalised.

The government refuses to recognise the MNJ, dismissing them as common bandits and drug traffickers, and says the vast majority of Tuareg demands from the 1990s have been met.

REUTERS AK BST0200