Nigeria says scores killed in gun battle with Boko Haram
The Nigerian military says it has killed at least 50 Islamist rebels as they tried to cross into Cameroon, in a fierce gun battle that saw 15 of their own troops and five civilians die.
Nigerian forces have stepped up an offensive in the volatile northeast in the last three days, after Boko Haram fighters armed with grenade launchers and anti-aircraft guns attacked an army barracks in the town of Bama on Friday.
The military often reports significant casualties among insurgents, while rarely admitting losses among its own troops or civilians. The figures it gave for Monday’s battle could not be immediately verified, but points to intensified hostilities between the Nigerian government and Islamist rebels.
Boko Haram is fighting to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in today’s religiously-mixed Nigeria and remains the country’s leading security threat. President Goodluck Jonathan last month extended a state of emergency in areas worst affected by the insurgency.
Striking back
The military began an offensive in May that initially drove the Islamists from large parts of the northeast, but they fell back into the hilly area of Gwoza, near the Cameroon border, from where they have launched deadly counter-attacks such as the one on Friday.
Nigeria’s defence spokesman Brigadier General Chris Olukolade said the military had targeted insurgents behind the Bama attack and that 20 vehicles used in that raid had been pinpointed from the air and destroyed.
“Although a good number of the insurgents escaped with bullet wounds, while some have been arrested, over 50 of them died in the course of exchange of fire with ground troops in the operations to apprehend fleeing terrorists,” he said.
Africa’s latest terrorist frontier
Fearing Boko Haram attacks over Christmas, Nigerian police have ordered extra patrols, surveillance and covert operations to protect potential targets.
The group claimed responsibility for a coordinated strike on December 2 on the air force base and military barracks in the main northeastern city of Maiduguri in the first major assault on the heavily guarded city this year.