Nigeria: Nigerian security forces kill 20 Boko Haram militants in shootout in Maiduguri
Nigerian security forces killed 20 suspected militants of the Boko Haram sect in a shootout on Sunday as they raided an Islamist hideout in the country’s northeast, a security officer said.
One soldier was also killed in the shootout in Maiduguri, the capital of the Borno state, the officer said.
Boko Haram, an Islamist group styled on the Taliban, is waging an insurgency against the government with a view to creating an Islamic state in Nigeria, a country of more than 160 million split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.
Security forces had intelligence that some members of the group were holding a gathering at a location in Maiduguri, said Colonel Victor Ebhaleme, field operations officer of the military and police mixed Joint Task Force (JTF) in Borno.