Boko haram attack Jakana military base after deadly ambush
Islamic State militants attacked a military base in Jakana town in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state after ambushing a military vehicle nearby and killing the six soldiers aboard, two military sources told AFP Thursday.
Heavily-armed Islamic State West Africa Province fighters opened fire on a patrol vehicle on Wednesday, July 17 near Jakana, which is around 40 km (25 miles) west of Borno state capital Maiduguri, killing all the soldiers on board.
“We lost all six soldiers in the ambush, including a colonel,” said the first of two military sources, who both spoke on condition of anonymity.
The soldiers were on their way to Maiduguri from Damaturu, the capital of neighboring Yobe state, when the militants attacked around 5:20 p.m. local time (1620 GMT), said the source.
“The gun truck the soldiers were driving in was destroyed,” the second source said.
Following the ambush the insurgents attacked a military base just outside Jakana in seven technicals – pickup trucks fitted with machine guns, also known as gun trucks in Nigeria – engaging troops in an hour-long battle, the sources said. The attack was repelled by soldiers at the base, with ISWAP fighters abandoning weapons and one vehicle as they fled.
Nigeria’s Sun News outlet, which first broke news of the raid on Jakana on Wednesday, said the attack began at around 6:30 p.m. and that scores of residents had fled into the bush.
The army has not officially confirmed the attacks, and ISIS has not yet said that ISWAP fighters were responsible.
The 120-km Maiduguri-Damaturu road has seen repeated attacks, on military bases and markets in villages. ISWAP’s main area of operations is further east in the Lake Chad area.
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ISIS-claimed attacks in the Maiduguri area, previously dominated by the Shekau-led Boko Haram faction, have been concentrated on military bases north of the state capital, although there has also been an uptick in ISWAP attacks on bases south of Maiduguri.
In late June, ISWAP fighters in seven technicals and on motorcycles attacked a military base at Goniri, in Yobe state, around 60 km southwest of Jakana.
Jakana population moved by military
In early December, three civilians were killed during clashes between Nigerian soldiers and ISWAP militants in Jakana.
In January, ISWAP reportedly sent letters to residents of Jakana and nearby Mainok telling them to vacate their homes ahead of an impending raid on the military.
ISIS claimed ISWAP fighters on April 5 clashed with the Nigerian army in Jakana and Mainok, killing and injuring an unspecified number and destroying six vehicles.
On April 8, up to 10,000 residents of Jakana were moved at very short notice by the military to the Bakassi camp for internally displaced people in Maiduguri where they were screened. They were moved without “time to collect personal belongings,” the United Nations said.
A Nigerian Army spokesperson later said that the relocation was related to intensive multi-nation operations against insurgents around Lake Chad, 150 km further northeast, but the Guardian reported a military source as saying the people of Jakana were suspected of “conspiring with Boko Haram.” A Punch source repeated the allegation, saying that the insurgents come to Jakana “with agreement that they will not attack the town” or kill any of its people, and that they allow “the insurgents to freely come in and make purchases from shops.”
Residents were allowed to start returning to Jakana on April 11, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Source: Defense Post
