BAMAKO (AFP) - Malian Islamist group the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) have claimed the twin car bombings that killed 10 people at an army base and French-run uranium mine in Niger on Thursday.

"Thanks to Allah, we have carried out two operations against the enemies of Islam in Niger," spokesman Abu Walid Sahraoui told AFP.

He called the attacks a punishment for Niger's "cooperation with France in the war against sharia", a reference to Niger troops fighting with French-led forces against radical Islamists who had seized control of northern Mali last year.