Niger’s Army has announced the elimination of more than 100 terrorists through air and ground operations.
This action was taken in response to an attack near the Burkina Faso border that resulted in casualties among soldiers.
On Thursday, the army reported that an alliance of armed groups killed 20 soldiers and one civilian in the Tera area of western Niger, where jihadist groups have a presence, on June 25.
Since then, “over 100 terrorists have been killed,” the army confirmed, vowing to continue their operations.
In a previous update, the army stated that it had killed around 30 terrorists in the region following the Tera attack and “destroyed their military equipment” in an airstrike.
Tera is situated in the Tillabéri region, bordering Mali and Burkina Faso. For nearly a decade, rebels linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS have waged a deadly insurgency in the area, frequently targeting civilians and forcing many to flee their homes.
Additionally, transport trucks pass through Tera from Niger, arriving monthly from Lomé port in Togo via northern Burkina Faso.
70 Extremists Killed in Lake Chad Region
Meanwhile, a military offensive has resulted in the deaths of 70 extremists in the Lake Chad region, spanning Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad, according to a regional military coalition.
The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), comprising forces from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, along with the Chadian military, conducted air, naval, and ground assaults on jihadist positions in the Lake Chad area, killing 70 militants, as stated in a coalition report.
The MNJTF, established in 1994 to combat cross-border crime, later expanded its mandate to include fighting jihadists whose attacks had spread from their Nigerian base to neighboring countries.
The Chadian military confirmed the same death toll in a statement released on Sunday, noting that “over 70 terrorists” were eliminated by the “Rapid Intervention Force,” an elite unit recently formed by Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby.
The jihadist conflict began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 with Boko Haram and later with ISIS in West Africa, resulting in 40,000 deaths and displacing nearly two million people in Nigeria.
Lieutenant Colonel Abubakar Abdullahi, spokesperson for the MNJTF, said that strikes by the coalition in the Nigerian section of Lake Chad forced militants to flee to Chad, where 70 of them were killed by the Chadian military. Abdullahi did not specify whether the targeted groups were Boko Haram or ISIS in West Africa.
