More than 300 Boko Haram fighters have been killed in military operations in north-east Nigeria, the army says.<\/p>\n
A number of militants had also been captured and weapons and equipment seized, defence spokesman Chris Olukolade said.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”unnHgdotQZnW8BEZZbBxFHjC2m6An80I”]Two soldiers lost their lives and 10 were wounded during the operation in Borno state, he added. The deaths have not been independently verified.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, up to 30 people have died in an air strike on the border with Niger.<\/p>\n
They were attending a funeral ceremony at a village when an unidentified plane began dropping bombs, local officials and humanitarian sources said.<\/p>\n
It is not yet clear who was responsible for the bombardment, but Nigeria has denied responsibility.<\/p>\n
“It’s not to my knowledge and there has not been any report from our people of such an incident,” said Dele Alonge, a spokesman for Nigeria’s air force.<\/p>\n
‘Desperate response’
\nNiger has been the target of bombings in the past, blamed on Boko Haram since it widened its brutal insurgency.<\/p>\n
Thousands of civilians and soldiers have been killed during the group’s campaign for a breakaway Islamic state.<\/p>\n
Niger, Chad and Cameroon have recently formed a military coalition with Nigeria to help combat the threat.<\/p>\n
Nigerian forces have been accused of overstating enemy casualties in the past.<\/p>\n
But the two-day operation against militants in Borno State had inflicted “massive casualties”, Mr Olukolade said.<\/p>\n
He told the BBC he was not surprised Boko Haram was continuing to carry out attacks despite “heat” from coalition troops.<\/p>\n
“What you see are elements of their desperate response to the ongoing onslaught on their various camps and locations.<\/p>\n
“It is expected and it will be contained accordingly,” he added.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 300 Boko Haram fighters have been killed in military operations in north-east Nigeria, the army says. A number of militants had also been captured and weapons and equipment seized, defence spokesman Chris Olukolade said. [contextly_sidebar id=”unnHgdotQZnW8BEZZbBxFHjC2m6An80I”]Two soldiers lost their lives and 10 were wounded during the operation in Borno state, he added. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-92640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}