Troops rescue 338 Boko Haram captives
Thirty extremists were killed on Tuesday in attacks on two camps on the fringes of the Islamic insurgents’ holdout in Sambisa Forest, according to the military.
Separately troops ambushed and killed four suspects on a bombing mission in north-eastern Adamawa state.
Hundreds of people have died in suicide bombing attacks mainly targeting mosques and markets in recent months.
The military posted photographs of several guns and ammunition it said were seized in the attacks, along with images of bodies of alleged insurgents.
Nigerian troops have rescued hundreds of Boko Haram captives this year but none of the 219 girls kidnapped from a school in Chibok town.
Their mass abduction in April 2014 sparked international outrage against the extremists and Nigeria’s government for failing to rescue them.
It highlighted military and government failures in fighting the 6-year-old Islamic uprising that has killed an estimated 20,000 people and driven 2.3m from their homes, according to Amnesty International and the UN.
Those failures and massive corruption led Nigerians to vote out president Goodluck Jonathan and elect the former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari in March.
Earlier this year, troops from Nigeria and Chad forced Boko Haram out of a large swath of north-eastern Nigeria where Boko Haram, which is allied with Islamic State, had declared an Islamic caliphate.
Buhari has promised to halt the uprising by December. Nigeria’s homegrown extremist group has responded with a relentless campaign of suicide bombings in northern, north-eastern, and central Nigeria, as well as in the neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon, and Niger.
The deployment of a multinational force has been delayed without explanation for months.
