প্রকাশ: 26/05/2022
The Niger
government said Wednesday that the army had killed around 40 Boko Haram
jihadists in overnight fighting on islets in Lake Chad.
"Some
100 Boko Haram fighters arrived in four large wooden canoes and an armed
speedboat" and attempted to attack troops on the islets of the lake, which
borders Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, the defence ministry said.
The
soldiers "forced the assailants to flee with several dead in their
ranks," the ministry said.
A
subsequent mopping-up operation in the area "led to the neutralisation of
some 40 fighters" and the recovery of several weapons along with
ammunition and explosives.
On the
army side, seven soldiers were injured when their vehicle was blown up by an
improvised explosive device, the ministry said.
The Lake
Chad basin, and its countless small islands, have become one of the main havens
for jihadists from Nigeria's Boko Haram and its dissident branch, the Islamic
State in West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Niger,
Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad revived the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) in
2015 to fight the extremists.
The forces
launched a new offensive in March that aimed to "completely destroy Boko
Haram and other terrorist groups which plague the basin", a senior MJTF
official, who wished to remain anonymous, told AFP earlier this month.
The joint
force killed some 20 jihadists in operation in early May.
Boko Haram launched an insurgency in northeast Nigeria in 2009 before it spread
to neighbouring countries.
More than
36,000 people have been killed since, mainly in Nigeria, and three million were
forced to flee their homes, the United Nations says.
– BSS/AFP
প্রধান সম্পাদকঃ সৈয়দ বোরহান কবীর
ক্রিয়েটিভ মিডিয়া লিমিটেডের অঙ্গ প্রতিষ্ঠান
বার্তা এবং বাণিজ্যিক কার্যালয়ঃ ২/৩ , ব্লক - ডি , লালমাটিয়া , ঢাকা -১২০৭
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ফোনঃ +৮৮-০২৯১২৩৬৭৭