Nigeria
Suspected jihadists launched an overnight attack on a Nigerian military post on the outskirts of Maiduguri, a key northeastern city that had not seen such violence in years, police, emergency services and residents said Monday.
“At about 12:15 am this morning, we started hearing gunshots coming from the military base. Later, we realised it was an attack by insurgents believed to be Boko Haram,” Ajilari Cross resident Mustapha Aminu told AFP.
The attack occurred around midnight in the Ajilari Cross district, a southwestern suburb of Maiduguri and just a few kilometres (miles) from the city’s airport. Residents and emergency services said the military quickly repelled the attackers. The neighbourhood was calm on Monday morning, AFP journalists saw. Another attack was reported in Damboa local government area, south of Maiduguri.
Police said the incidents followed “widespread reports of sporadic gunshots and explosions” and were a result of “attempted infiltrations by suspected” Boko Haram/ISWAP militants.
“In a swift and coordinated response, joint security operatives who were already on heightened alert engaged the insurgents and successfully repelled the attacks, forcing the terrorists to retreat,” police spokesman Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement.
He said no casualties were recorded among the military or civilians, adding the insurgents were believed to have suffered casualties.
An emergency services spokesman in Borno state, whose capital is Maiduguri, told AFP they had received “reports of attacks” by non-state armed groups and that these had been “repelled by the military”, with no civilian casualties reported. Residents reported four deaths on the attackers’ side.
“We counted four corpses of the attackers,” he said. Another resident, Yakaka Ali Gana, said: “This is the first time attackers have stormed our community and attacked the military base.” The military has yet to comment.
Fragile calm ruptured
Maiduguri, once the scene of shootings and bombings, had been relatively calm in recent years, with attacks peaking in the mid-2010s. The last major attack dates back to 2021, when Boko Haram jihadists fired mortars at the city, killing 10 people.
In December, an unclaimed bombing killed at least seven people in a city mosque. But in the countryside surrounding Maiduguri, violence has continued.
Fighters from Boko Haram and rival jihadist group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have recently stepped up attacks on military bases in northeastern Nigeria.
Their 16-year campaign to establish a caliphate in the country has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million.
Last week, the army confirmed “coordinated attacks” on several military bases in the northeast, which killed at least 14 people, including 10 soldiers, according to local civilian and military sources.
Last month, the United States began deploying troops to Nigeria to provide technical and training support to the country’s soldiers in fighting jihadist groups.
The US Africa Command said 200 troops were expected to join the deployment overall.
The deployment came after US President Donald Trump said the violence amounted to the “persecution” of Christians – a framing long used by the US religious and political right wing.
Nigeria’s government and many independent experts say Christians and Muslims alike are the victims of the country’s violence.
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