Days after B’Haram attack, 83 Nigerian soldiers missing

– Eighty-three soldiers, including a commanding officer, are still missing 4 days after the Nigerian army came under Boko Haram attack

– The details of the attack are still catchy as the troops went missing after the attack

– Hundreds of insurgents attacked the base of the Nigerian army on the border with Niger on Monday, October 17

Four days after the Nigerian army came under Boko Haram attack, at least 83 soldiers, including a commanding officer, are still missing, Premium Times reports.

According to top level military sources monitoring the development, the soldiers were still missing in action as of Friday morning, four days after the attack.

On Tuesday, October 18, the Nigerian Army confirmed the attack in a statement, but did s not given further updates. It did not also admit 83 soldiers were missing.

It was reported earlier how the Nigerian troops drowned in a river as they scampered for safety in the face of a superior firepower from the terrorists.

About 22 of the fleeing soldiers were later rescued by their Nigerien counterparts and dispatched to a hospital in Diffa, southern Niger, several others were fatally wounded after Boko Haram opened fire on them when they jumped into the River Yobe.

The missing Commanding Officer of 223 Tank Battalion in Gashigar, was identified as K. Yusuf, a lieutenant colonel.

Military sources further revealed that  the troops could not withstand Boko Haram because they had only two light armour tanks to work with.

Even the two tanks were withdrawn from the battlefront in Damasak to Gashigar, leaving soldiers in Damasak and other small units nearby with no tank.

Apart from the poor equipment, the renewed show of strength by Boko Haram has frightened many, coming after months of relative success by the soldiers.
In another development, the chief of army staff Tukur Buratai on Tuesday, October 18, said all Boko Haram terrorists have been eliminated from Nigerian territory.

The army chief speaking in Lagos at the Albati Barracks while commissioning some structures said most of the terrorists’ attacks are carried out by insurgents from the Lake Chad Basin. Buratai said these attacks are mostly carried out outside the borders of Nigeria.

In another development, the chief of army staff Tukur Buratai on Tuesday, October 18, said all Boko Haram terrorists have been eliminated from Nigerian territory.


BREAKING: Boko Haram attack military camp, kidnap soldiers

There are emerging reports that a remote military camp in the northeastern region of Nigeria, has been raided by Boko Haram insurgents.


The insurgents reportedly stormed the camp on Monday, October 17, wounding 13 soldiers and taking away an unknown number of soldiers.
According to a statement made by the army on Wednesday, October 19, an operation to get back the missing soldiers is still ongoing as the army has gone after Islamic extremists that attacked the camp.

Monday’s attack comes a week after one faction of Boko Haram released 21 of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped from northeastern Chibok town, and as Nigeria’s government is negotiating for the release of another 83 of the girls abducted 2½ years ago.

The attack on Gashigar, on the border with Niger, is the third reported attack on the military after months of a lull during which the Islamic extremists hit soft civilian targets.

Army spokesman Col Sani Kukasheka Usman called the attack a “temporary setback” committed by “remnants of Boko Haram” that forced the soldiers to retreat. An operation is in progress to find the missing troopers and “clear the Boko Haram terrorists at the general area,” his statement said.

It is believed the attack is by a splinter from Boko Haram that calls itself the West Africa Province of the Islamic State. The IS named a new caliph of its only franchise in sub-Saharan Africa in August, provoking a struggle with Boko Haram’s longtime leader Abubakar Shekau. A battle of words on social media indicated the dispute is over Shekau’s indiscriminate killing of Muslims.

The group loyal to Shekau negotiated – with the Swiss government and International Committee of the Red Cross acting as intermediaries for Nigeria’s government – last Thursday’s release of 21 Chibok girls, the first such negotiated settlement.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who flew to Germany the day the girls were set free, is scheduled to meet with them and their families later Wednesday, according to a social media message posted by the official account of Nigeria’s presidency.

Boko Haram’s 7-year-old Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people, forced some 2.6 million from their homes and left tens of thousands facing famine-like conditions, according to aid agencies and the U.N.

Meanwhile, Premium Times has obtained the information about how the Nigerien army carried out three rescue operations to recapture no fewer than 22 Nigerian soldiers from the Boko Haram insurgents.

A top military source familiar with the development said that the Nigerian troops were operating an outpost in Gashigar, Borno state, near the border with Niger, when the Boko Haram fighter in their hundreds advanced rapidly towards them, making the soldiers leave their position with some diving into the nearby river.