by S’ola Filani
Fifty three Boko Haram fighters were killed as soldiers repelled a daring attack in Damboa, Borno State on Friday night.
The Friday attack at Damboa, was a reprisal attack following a military clampdown on Boko Haram camps at Yajiwa and Alagarno on Thursday.
Confirming the news, the Director of Defence Information (DDI), Maj-Gen. Chris Olukolade, in a statement disclosed that a total of 5 soldiers and a senior officer were killed in the attack.
The Boko Haram fighters fired Rocket Propelled Grenades and used Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) but the military repelled the terrorists in a fierce battle, killing about 50 of them.
Olukolade explained that the Islamic sect members had stormed the troops’ bases and police locations while most of the soldiers were out on patrol of surrounding villages on Thursday.
Olukolade also revealed that the troops on patrol around Baga area recovered explosives and rifles concealed in a truck loaded with fish and other commodities.
He said that four suspects had been taken into custody in connection with the incident.
“It was a successful air raid carried out by the airforce in conjunction with the ground troops of the Nigeria army from Division 7. During the air raid that took place on Thursday evening, the Boko Haram suffered heavy casualties as dozens of them were killed.
Angered by the devastation they suffered, the insurgents decided to mobilise in full force with an attempt to attack the base in Damboa, but unknown to them, the soldiers there were fully alert about possible reprisal attack. And when they eventually surfaced on Friday evening in over ten vehicles, soldiers engaged them in a fierce shoot-out that claimed over 50 of them,” a police source told journalists.
At Konduga also in Borno State, a suicide bomber in a Golf car yesterday crashed into a checkpoint killing himself, a policeman and three vigilante youths.
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