Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen Chris Olukolade.
Suspected Boko Haram insurgents on Friday afternoon carried out multiple attacks in Borno State, killing scores of people, including soldiers, policemen and members of a vigilante group.
The terrorists assailed military and police locations in Damboa town, where scores of military and police troops were feared killed.
The Defence Headquarters however verbalized on Saturday that 53 of the insurgents were killed when security forces repelled the assailments.
The Director of Defence Information, Major-General Chris Olukolade, in a verbalization, verbally expressed the military lost five soldiers and a senior officer during the confrontation.
He verbalized the insurgents stormed the troops’ bases and police locations, while most of the operatives were out on patrol of circumventing villages.
Olukolade verbalized the bodies of officers killed had been recuperated and deposited in the military morgue, while those wounded were receiving treatment in a military medical facility.
The Defence Headquarters withal disclosed that troops on patrol around Baga area of the state recuperated explosives and arms concealed in a truck loaded with fish and other items.
Olukolade verbalized four suspects had been apprehended in connection with the conveyance.
A military source, who verbalized with the online news agency, Sahara Reporters, had verbally expressed, “At least, 10 soldiers and police officers were killed and several injured” in Damboa.
The terrorists reportedly stormed the 33 Armoured Brigades, Damboa and the Divisional Police Station, firing high calibre weapons and Improvised Explosive Devices.
The military source, who pleaded anonymity, verbally expressed the militants additionally targeted the Divisional Police Officer, killing him and four other policemen.
“Over a dozen of the militants were withal killed,” the source integrated.
Hundreds of Dambua residents were verbalized to have fled to Biu and Maiduguri, the state capital, due to the magnitude of the assailments.
The Borno State Police Command attested the assailments but did not particularize.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Gideon Jubrin, was quoted as saying, “There was an assailment in Damboa but we haven’t got details from the area (yet). I can’t tell you anything for now.”
Withal on Friday, a suicide bomber in a Volkswagen Golf car reportedly crashed into a security checkpoint, killing himself, a policeman and three members of a youth vigilante group in Konduga, Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State.
Similarly, in Konduga same day, a suicide bomber suspected to be a member of the terrorist group reportedly killed five people and wounded dozens.
The bomber was verbalized to have targeted worshippers at a mosque where Muslims in the village were observing Friday prayers.
International news agency, Reuters, reported that a local vigilante group ceased the pick-up truck conveying the bomber for inspection when he approached a checkpoint.
The bomber then detonated the bomb a few metres away from the mosque.
Reuters quoted a witness, Mohammadu Sheriff, as saying he optically discerned the vigilantes conducting checks on the pick-up van carrying firewood.
“Suddenly it exploded. It would have been more devastating if the bomber had prospered in driving near the mosque, which had over a thousand people in it,” Sheriff verbalized.
Sahara Reporters additionally reported that among the dead was a police officer. The report verbalized 10 persons were injured.
The agency quoted a resident in the area, Modu Ban’a, as saying, “The pickup van had approached the check point at noon and as the local security operatives endeavored to frisk the car afore sanctioning it to pass, the driver, who was on a suicide mission, detonated the explosive contrivance that killed five persons among who was a plain-clothe police officer from the Criminal Investigation Bureau.”
