NIAMEY, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Two people were wounded on Monday when their truck hit a landmine in the town of Maradi in central Niger, less than a month after the government warned that Tuareg rebels were planning acts of "urban terrorism".

President Mamdou Tandja's government last month extended a state of alert in northern Niger, home to some of the world's largest uranium deposits, saying the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) was planning to widen its violent 9-month uprising.

The MNJ has killed at least 49 soldiers, mainly using land mines on remote desert highways, in a 10-month campaign for greater autonomy for Niger's isolated north.

"A vehicle carrying sacks of nuts and some passengers hit a mine in a street in Maradi," a senior police official told Reuters. "There were two people injured, including the driver who was seriously wounded and is in hospital."

The attack at Maradi, some 550 km (340 miles) east of the capital Niamey, was the first successful urban attack during the current uprising by the light-skinned nomadic Tuareg people.

On Nov. 21 police foiled an attempt to detonate an anti-tank mine in a fuel depot in the town of Dosso, 140 km east of Niamey. (Reporting by Daniel Flynn; editing by Ralph Boulton)

AlertNet news is provided by