Scores of Boko Haram militants have been killed in ground and air raids in the northeast of the country, a Nigerian military official says.


Colonel Muhammed Dole, the spokesman for the 7th Division of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri, said on Saturday that a large number of Boko Haram militants were killed in the raids on their secret bases in the West of Maiduguri.

Dole said that the Thursday attack has “resulted in serious decimation of Boko Haram fighters.”

The raids took place in the Ngauramari farming community of Bama Local Government Area, located in Borno state.

The Army’s raid came after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau on December 12 claimed responsibility for an attack on military installations in the northern city of Maiduguri earlier this month.

On December 2, hundreds of Boko Haram militants attacked army barracks, an air force base and several other areas of Maiduguri.

Sources said that the militants damaged aircraft and razed the buildings and shops as well as the army barracks to the ground. They also set fire to a number of petrol stations in the city.

Violence has intensified in northeastern Nigeria since President Goodluck Jonathan ordered security forces in May to crush the four-year-old Boko Haram rebellion.

Nigerian forces have been raiding militant camps and launching air and ground attacks on suspected hideouts of the militants in recent months.

Boko Haram says its aim is to topple the Nigerian government, which it accuses of being pro-Western. The group has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly gun and bomb attacks in various parts of Nigeria since 2009.