{"id":177180,"date":"2022-05-26T12:07:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T04:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=177180"},"modified":"2022-05-26T12:08:21","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T04:08:21","slug":"niger-says-army-killed-40-jihadists-on-lake-chad-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=177180","title":{"rendered":"Niger says army killed 40 jihadists on Lake Chad islands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/assets\/news_photos\/2022\/05\/26\/image-62964-1653534176.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>NIAMEY, May 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8211; The Niger government said that the army had killed around 40 Boko Haram jihadists in overnight fighting on islets in Lake Chad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Some 100 Boko Haram fighters arrived in four large wooden canoes and an armed speedboat&#8221; and attempted to attack troops on the islets of the lake, which borders Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, the defence ministry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The soldiers &#8220;forced the assailants to flee with several dead in their ranks,&#8221; the ministry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A subsequent mopping-up operation in the area &#8220;led to the neutralisation of some 40 fighters&#8221; and the recovery of several weapons along with ammunition and explosives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the army side, seven soldiers were injured when their vehicle was blown up by an improvised explosive device, the ministry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Lake Chad basin, and its countless small islands, have become one of the main havens for jihadists from Nigeria&#8217;s Boko Haram and its dissident branch, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad revived the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) in 2015 to fight the extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The forces launched a new offensive in March that aimed to &#8220;completely destroy Boko Haram and other terrorist groups which plague the basin&#8221;, a senior MJTF official, who wished to remain anonymous, said earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The joint force killed some 20 jihadists in operation in early May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Boko Haram launched an insurgency in northeast Nigeria in 2009 before it spread to neighbouring countries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 36,000 people have been killed since, mainly in Nigeria, and three million were forced to flee their homes, the United Nations says. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NIAMEY, May 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8211; The Niger government said that the army had killed around 40 Boko Haram jihadists in overnight fighting on islets in Lake Chad. &#8220;Some 100 Boko Haram fighters arrived in four large wooden canoes and an armed speedboat&#8221; and attempted to attack troops on the islets of the lake, which borders [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177180"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177180"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177185,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177180\/revisions\/177185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}