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Niger has detained and charged 643 people since February for their links to the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, Security Minister Hassoumi Massaoudou told parliament, Reuters reports.

Niger has deployed 3,000 soldiers to a joint regional force formed with Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria in order to quash the Boko Haram insurgency, in which thousands have been killed.

Several Boko Haram networks and sleeper cells have been dismantled in Niger's southern Diffa region, which is on the border with Nigeria, since a state of emergency was declared there in February and troops deployed, Massaoudou said.

"If this measure had not been taken, we could have had an uprising in the very interior of Diffa," the minister told parliament late Tuesday.

Those arrested and detained have been charged with acts of terrorism and criminal conspiracy, he said.