The Nigerian army says it has killed more than 50 members of the Boko Haram Takfiri group after it repulsed an assault on a military base in a northeastern town.

Nigeria’s Director of Defense Information Major General Chris Olukolade said in a statement on Saturday that some 53 Boko Haram members had been killed after they engaged in a gun battle with Nigerian forces in the northeastern town of Damboa on Friday night.

According to the statement, five soldiers and a senior military officer were also killed in the fire fight.

Nigerian police said earlier that Boko Haram attacked the Damboa base in the Borno state with rocket-propelled grenades.

Nigeria has recently witnessed a surge of abductions and atrocities by the Takfiri group in its northeastern parts.

In a separate incident on Friday, at least five people were killed and dozens of others injured when a bomber detonated an explosives-laden pick-up truck near a mosque in the northeastern village of Konduga.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly gun and bomb attacks in various parts of Nigeria since 2009.
Boko Haram -- whose name means “Western education is forbidden” -- says its goal is to overthrow the Nigerian government.

On June 1, Nigeria’s military said it had conducted a raid against an “intelligence unit” of Boko Haram and arrested the group’s leader Babuji Ya’ari, who “participated actively” in the abduction of almost 300 schoolgirls in the northern town of Chibok in mid-April.