At least 17 Nigerian soldiers were
killed in a fresh Boko Haram attack on a military base in the country’s
northeast, military sources said Thursday, the third assault on three different
bases in less
than a month.On Wednesday evening, heavily armed
jihadists riding in trucks stormed and looted weapons and vehicles from a
military base in Garunda village in Borno State, the epicentre of the Islamist
insurgency that has been raging for nine years.
The attack is the latest of a series
of bloody Boko Haram assaults on military bases in Nigeria, underscoring the
continued threat the Islamists pose to the region and putting the spotlight on
the Nigerian government’s claim that Boko Haram is “decimated”.
“Our troops came under attack from
Boko Haram terrorists in Garunda last night,” a military officer said.
“Unfortunately we lost 17 troops, 14
others were injured while an unspecified number is still unaccounted for,” said the military source, who asked not to be identified
because he was not authorised to speak on the incident.
The source added that the militants
looted weapons and vehicles before fleeing.
In the past month, Boko Haram
jihadists have launched two other major assaults on military bases in the
remote northeast region.
On July 14, jihadists suspected to
be loyal to Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi, who is affiliated with the Islamic State
group, attacked a base in Jilli village, in neighbouring Yobe state.
Dozens of troops were killed,
wounded or missing, according to several security sources.
The army conceded the base was
attacked but did not give a death toll, saying that the “troops reorganised
and successfully repelled the attack and normalcy has since returned to the
area”.
On July 26, the Islamists stormed a
base on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the state capital of Borno state.
The base attacked yesterday in
Garunda village of Borno state had just been set up for troops from the 81
brigade who had been stationed in Jilli village and forced to move after the
July 14 assault.
“The truth of the matter is that the
troops in Jilli were relocated to Garunda where a new base was established,” said the second military source, who gave a similar death
toll.
“Troops were just setting up and the
excavator operator was working to fortify the base with trenches against attack
from the terrorists when the attack happened,” said the officer.
The Nigerian army did not respond to
to requests for comment.
Nigeria’s National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA) on Thursday confirmed in a statement that a staff
member, an excavator operator attached to the military, “was killed by Boko
Haram yesterday in Damasak, Borno state”.
Boko Haram no longer controls
swathes of territory in northeast Nigeria as it did at the height of its
insurgency in 2014, yet the Islamist militants still pose a threat to the
impoverished region.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari
has insisted that the Islamists are a spent force as he gears up for elections
next year.
In an interview with Nigerian press
published on Thursday, Buhari’s information minister Lai Mohammed said “we
promised to fight insecurity…despite what anybody says, we have decimated Boko
Haram”.
Six months away from presidential
polls, Buhari is under pressure to defend his track record as he battles
insecurity across Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
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