Five Soldiers shot dead by gunmen

According to an Army source, Jihadist have killed 5 soldiers in an attack on a military outpost in restive northeast Nigeria on Wednesday.

According to the source, the jihadist, fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province stormed the checkpoint in several trucks and opened fire on the troops at a checkpoint outside the town of Mainok in Borno State.

“We lost five soldiers in the surprise attack on the checkpoint,” a military officer, who spoke to PUNCH correspondent on the basis of anonymity explained.

However, it was reported that troops from the town intercept the jihadists and a gun fight broke out amongst both party. This led to the death of some of the militants, while two vehicles fitted with machine guns were recovered.

Another military source said that the jihadists took away three military vehicles from the army and the five soldiers at the checkpoint were killed.

Spokesman Sagir Musa said two soldiers were “slightly wounded” in the encounter, without mentioning any fatalities from troops.

Mainok, which lies along the 120-kilometre (75-mile) highway linking Maiduguri and Damaturu, the capital of neighbouring Yobe state, is an ISWAP stronghold.

The area has seen an upsurge in abductions of civilians, prompting increased military deployments to confront the insurgents.

It would be recalled that ISWAP separated from Boko Haram in 2016 and has since 2018, intensified attacks against the military. Recently in January, 22 soldiers were killed in different ISWAP attacks, according to military sources.

The decade-long jihadist conflict has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in northeast Nigeria and the violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition to fight the insurgents.