A jihadist raid on a military base in northeast Nigeria near the border with Cameroon killed five troops from a multinational coalition Friday, two military sources told AFP.
Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) stormed the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) base housing Nigerian and Cameroonian troops in the town of Wulgo in a pre-dawn attack, engaging troops in a gunfight, the two sources said.
“Four Nigerian soldiers and a Cameroonian soldier were killed in the fighting,” a Nigerian military source said.
“Nine of the terrorists were also killed,” the officer said.
The militants forced the troops to abandon the base after overwhelming them, said a second officer, who gave the same toll.
The attack came two months after a similar raid on the same base killed 25 Cameroonian soldiers.
The task force was created by Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Chad and Niger to fight cross-border armed groups. Its operations have been hampered in recent months by the withdrawal of Niger and threats by Chad to do the same.
In Friday’s attack, the jihadists burned two mine-resistant armored vehicles and five military trucks, and seized several motorcycles belonging to local hunters assisting the troops in fighting jihadist groups in the region, the two sources said.
The officers asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the raid.
ISWAP and its rival Boko Haram have intensified assaults on military bases in recent weeks, notably in the northeastern state of Borno, epicenter of an insurgency dating back to 2009.
