Nigeria: Air force raid in northeast kills terrorists

ANKARA

Several Daesh/ISIS-affiliated terrorists were killed when Nigerian jets bombarded their meeting place in the country’s restive northeast, a military spokesman said in a statement late Monday.

“The operation was executed on Dec. 14, following credible intelligence reports indicating that some of the ISWAP [‘Islamic State’ of West African Province] leaders had assembled for a meeting in one of two buildings at the centre of the settlement.

“The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) jets dispatched by the ATF to attack the location scored accurate hits on the target building, completely obliterating it and killing its terrorist occupants,” Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, NAF spokesman, was quoted by the DailyTrust as saying.

Daramola did not give an exact number of casualties.

The military operation came few days after four aid workers were killed by the Boko Haram terrorist group in northeast Nigeria.

The four men were among six humanitarian workers, including a driver and a woman, kidnapped by the terror group on July 26 in Damasak, near the Lake Chad region in Borno State.

One of the aid workers was reportedly executed in late September, while the woman, identified as Grace Taku, is still being held by the terrorists.

The so-called “Islamic State” in West Africa Province (ISWAP), a splinter of Boko Haram, is growing in power and influence in northeastern Nigeria.

It has notched up military successes and made inroads among Muslim civilians by reportedly treating them better than its parent group and by filling gaps in governance and service delivery, according to the International Crisis Group.

Since the early 2010s, Boko Haram has wielded power and influence in northeastern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.