News / Nigeria

Military operation kills 100 Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria: Commander

Sunday, 28 February 2016 5:43 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 28 February 2016 7:42 AM ]

The picture shows Cameroonian soldiers standing guard in the Cameroonian town of Fotokol, on the border with Nigeria, on February 17, 2015, after clashes with Nigeria-based Boko Haram terrorists. ©AFP

Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers have conducted a joint operation, killing about 100 members of the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group while pushing the militants out of a northeastern Nigerian village, a commander says.

General Jacob Kodji, the commander of Cameroonian forces, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the losses on Boko Haram came in the operation for the liberation of Kumshe, situated 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Nigeria’s border with Cameroon.

The troops rescued several hundred hostages in the village, including young girls who were being trained as bombers, Kodji added.

"Our boys are still on the field with Nigerian soldiers and have received instructions to continue raids on all Boko Haram border villages until we defeat them," the general stated.

In another development on Saturday, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff Major General Tukur Buratai said the main roads to and from Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's volatile northeastern Borno State, have been reopened.

The roads were shut in July 2013 after the beginning of a government-imposed state of emergency in Borno and its neighboring provinces.

Buratai also noted that a new armed motorbike battalion would patrol the roads in a bid to help soldiers pursue Boko Haram suspects.

Displaced people arrive at the Furore camp in Yola, Nigeria, on December 8, 2015. ©AP

Some 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million others made homeless since the beginning of the Boko Haram bloody militancy in Nigeria in 2009.

The militants have recently pledged allegiance to the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which is primarily operating in Syria and Iraq.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has spread its attacks from northeastern Nigeria, its traditional stronghold, to the neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

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