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- Nigerian troops killed scores of Islamist insurgents throughout heavy preventing round a distant military base on the border with Niger.
- Numerous fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) group attacked the bottom at Burkusuma.
- ISWAP was beforehand a part of the Boko Haram rebel group based mostly in northeast Nigeria. It cut up 5 years in the past.
Nigerian troops killed scores of Islamist insurgents and suffered casualties amongst their very own ranks throughout heavy preventing round a distant military base on the border with Niger, the army mentioned on Monday.
Numerous fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) group attacked the bottom at Burkusuma, in Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto State, within the early hours of Sunday, Main Common Benjamin Sawyerr mentioned in a press release.
“The failed assault … was swiftly repelled by troops,” Sawyerr, the armed forces spokesperson, added. “Sadly, there have been some degree of casualty recorded on the a part of personal troops throughout the encounter.”
The attackers had fled throughout the border with Niger in direction of the distant settlement of Bassira, and have been now being pursued by Nigerian and Nigerien troops working collectively, Sawyerr mentioned.
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ISWAP was beforehand a part of the Boko Haram rebel group based mostly in northeast Nigeria. It cut up 5 years in the past, pledging allegiance to Islamic State, and the 2 teams have fought every different in addition to the Nigerian armed forces.
The Boko Haram and ISWAP insurgencies have spilled out of Nigeria into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
The 12-year battle has claimed 300 000 lives, in keeping with a United Nations estimate, and left thousands and thousands depending on support.
READ | Nigeria says it seizes 14 tons of fertiliser meant for Boko Haram bombs
Sokoto State, in Nigeria’s northwestern nook, is much from the Islamist insurgents’ conventional space of operations in northeastern Borno State.
Northwestern Nigeria, together with Sokoto, has been hit by a wave of mass abductions this yr which the authorities have blamed on to bandits searching for ransoms.
A army crackdown on bandit camps is underway, and Sawyerr advised a hyperlink between that and the assault on the Burkusuma base, although he didn’t clarify the connection.
“The aggressive operations of troops of the Ahead Working Base (at Burkusuma) as witnessed in latest months in the northwest area has been a thorn within the flesh of ISWAP and bandits,” he mentioned.
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