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Nigeria’s military announced on Thursday that it had eliminated 50 armed insurgents who were using drones to carry out various assaults on military bases in the unstable northeast region.
As the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria has been engaged in a battle against the Boko Haram terrorist organisation and its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), for 16 years, as these groups attempt to create a caliphate in the northeast.
In the early morning of Thursday, troops, supported by fighter jets, confronted terrorists who had initiated coordinated assaults on bases located in the towns of Dikwa, Mafa, and Gajibo in Borno state, as well as in Katarko in the adjacent Yobe state, according to a statement from a military spokesperson.
While the military did not specify which group was responsible for the assaults, intelligence sources informed AFP that ISWAP militants were behind them.
“The combined ground and air efforts resulted in the neutralisation of over 50 terrorists across all the locations,” Lieutenant Colonel Sani Uba said in the statement.
Ground and aerial operations are still in progress to locate “over 70 of the injured” insurgents, Uba added.
Soldiers confiscated numerous AK-47 rifles, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) from the insurgents, he indicated.
In a post on X, the army shared images depicting soldiers standing over a line of several corpses identified as jihadist fighters, alongside their weapons, at one of the attacked military bases.
Uba said that several soldiers sustained injuries during the clashes, without providing exact figures.
The recent assaults highlight ISWAP’s robustness and its ongoing ability to launch attacks on the military in the northeast, the military said
Although violence has decreased since its peak a decade ago, researchers have warned of a resurgence in jihadist assaults this year.
The conflict has resulted in over 40,000 fatalities and displaced approximately two million individuals in northeastern Nigeria.
Earlier this month, at least 14 soldiers were killed in two assaults in Borno state attributed to insurgents—one occurred at a military base, while the other involved an ambush on an army convoy.
Since 2019, armed forces have closed several smaller military bases and relocated to larger, fortified garrisons referred to as “super camps” in a bid to withstand militant attacks.
Critics argue that this strategy has granted militants greater freedom to traverse rural areas and has made travellers more susceptible to kidnappings.
