16 Soldiers Die As Nigeria Army Kills 150 Boko Haram Islamists At Camp

The Nigerian army killed 150 Islamist militants and lost 16 soldiers in a clash last week at a Boko Haram rebel base in the northeastern state of Borno, an army spokesman said.

Soldiers attacked “a fortified insurgents camp” on Sept. 12, Ibrahim Attahiru said today by phone from Abuja, the capital. 

Borno is one of three states where President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in May to battle the militants.

Since then the military has carried out an air and ground offensive in the outlawed group’s stronghold.

Jonathan said the measures were necessary after insurgents had started taking over parts of Borno state.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is a sin” in the Hausa language, has carried out gun and bomb attacks across Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north and Abuja, killing thousands of people since 2009. 

The group says it wants to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria, whose population of more than 160 million people is roughly equally split between Christians, predominant in the south, and Muslims.