Abuja, May 19 (IANS) The death toll among Islamic State fighters in Nigeria has risen to 175 after several days of joint airstrikes between Nigeria and the United States in the country’s northeast.
More than “175 ISIS militants were eliminated on the battlefield,” Nigeria’s army spokesman Samaila Uba said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The joint strikes destroyed checkpoints, weapons depots, logistics centres, military equipment, and the headquarters of financial networks used to support terrorist operations,” he added.
Since 2009, the jihadist insurgency led by Boko Haram and subsequently the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced over two million people in the northeast of the country, according to the United Nations, Adnkronos news agency reported.
Military cooperation between Abuja and Washington has been intensifying for several months.
“The Nigerians have played a crucial role over the past few months: they identified the target, helped us gather intelligence, and provided the support necessary to complete this mission,” AFRICOM Commander Dagvin Anderson told a congressional hearing in Washington.
Last week, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said that Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second-in-command of the Islamic State (IS) globally, was eliminated in an overnight operation jointly carried out by Nigerian and US forces.
In a statement, Tinubu described the joint operation as “a significant example of effective collaboration in the fight against terrorism,” which dealt a heavy blow to the ranks of the IS.
He said early assessments confirmed the elimination of the wanted senior leader, also known as Abu-Mainok, along with several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin.
On Friday (US time), US President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the IS leader had been killed in a joint operation by US and Nigerian forces.
“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump stated.
–IANS
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