Islamic State group claims assaults on Nigeria troopers

The Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) is a breakaway faction of the Boko Haram extremist group which launched a insurgent insurgency towards the Nigerian authorities greater than a decade in the past.

Nigeria’s navy didn’t instantly reply to an inquiry for remark to verify the assaults, but in addition reported killing “a number of” extremists and recovering a “massive cache of weapons” and autos from the militants throughout “clearance operations” on Monday in Borno state in a location completely different from the place IS stated its fighters attacked.

On Tuesday, IS militants focused a Nigerian military patrol crew with 4 explosive units adopted by mortar shells launched at a navy camp within the city of Mallam Fatori, a couple of miles (kilometers) away from Nigeria’s northern neighbor Niger, the group stated in a single assertion.

An explosive system detonated throughout one other ambush resulted within the loss of life of three Nigerian troopers in Mallam Fatori, it stated, whereas “all these onboard” a navy truck have been both killed or wounded in one more ambush on a Nigerian military convoy in Jiri city on the outskirts of Borno.

Three assaults on Sunday and Monday killed and wounded “a number of” Nigerian troopers, IS additionally stated in separate statements, because the safety forces proceed to fall prey to the militants’ adoption of ambushes in areas the place they search to dominate and management particularly alongside the Lake Chad axis.

Because the loss of life of Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau in mid-2021, the IS-linked group have sought to consolidate their place within the Lake Chad basin and northeast Nigeria over Boko Haram, although each the rival extremist teams stay united in an insurgency towards the Nigerian authorities that has expanded to neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon and which has resulted within the loss of life of hundreds and displacement of tens of millions.

Amid the Nigerian navy’s claims of successes within the battle towards militants, analysts in addition to residents – a few of who’re being compelled to return to their properties after being displaced for years – have argued that the extremist insurgency is much from over.

The scenario remains to be a “very, very harmful (and) very threatening” disaster, the United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths instructed The Related Press final month. It’s “a really completely different form of operation and really tough additionally to discourage.”

Youssef contributed to this report from Cairo, Egypt.