Ten Nigerian soldiers were killed and another was taken hostage during clashes with jihadists in Borno State (northeast), according to security sources.
"We lost ten soldiers in the fighting and one was taken hostage by the terrorists,"
a security source said on Tuesday (December 8th).
The clashes erupted on Monday when a group of soldiers attacked a camp of fighters of the Islamic State group in West Africa (Iswap, a split from Boko Haram), in the village of Alagarno, in the district of Damboa.
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"It was an intense battle and the terrorists also suffered losses but they were able to dominate the soldiers,"
said another security source, adding that the jihadists seized four vehicles including a truck and a vehicle. armored.
The two sources asked to remain anonymous.
The village of Alagarno, 150 kilometers from the regional capital of Maiduguri, is an Iswap stronghold which has recently stepped up its attacks on civilians, killing and abducting people on highways and looting villages for supplies. food.
On Tuesday, Iswap said that its fighters killed seven Nigerian soldiers while repelling an attack in the Alagarno forest, according to a statement quoted by SITE, the American center specializing in the monitoring of the jihadist movement.
Iswap also claims to have killed four other Nigerian soldiers on the same day in another attack near the town of Gamboru, near the border with Cameroon.
AFP has not been able to verify this information from an independent source.
The Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009 in northeast Nigeria before spreading to neighboring countries.
Since then, more than 36,000 people (mainly in Nigeria) have been killed and 3 million have had to flee their homes, according to the UN.
