MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigeria’s military said yesterday that it had killed 53 fighters from the Islamist Boko Haram group when it repelled an attack on a military base in the northeast Nigerian town of Damboa.
A statement from defence spokesman Major-General Chris Olukolade added that five soldiers and a senior military officer had also been killed in an exchange of fire on Friday night.
The military often reports high casualty figures for the rebels and relatively low ones on its own side. It is usually not possible to verify these reports independently.
Earlier, police said insurgents had attacked the Damboa base, in the northeasterly Borno state, with rocket-propelled grenades. A security source said the raid was a revenge mission after dozens of Boko Haram militants were killed in an air and ground attack on two of their camps in the Yejiwa and Alagarno areas.
