Nigerian troops attack Boko Haram, 50 militants killed

Nigeria’s military says it has killed about 50 Boko Haram militants in an operation in the northeast of the country.

The Nigerian forces raided a militant camp and launched air and ground attacks on suspected hideouts of the militants over two days, a military official said on Friday.

The military’s newly formed anti-insurgency division took part in the operation, spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said in Maiduguri, the stronghold of the Boko Haram.

On Thursday, suspected members of the Boko Haram killed nine people in the village of Bulabulin-Ngabura, 50 kilometers north of Maiduguri.

And on the same day, unidentified militants reportedly shot dead 15 people in an attack on a local market in the town of Gajiran in Borno state.

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.

Over the past four years, violence in the north of Africa’s most populous country has claimed the lives of 3,600 people, including killings by the security forces.

In May 2013, the Nigerian government imposed a state of emergency in three states in the northeast, saying Boko Haram had become a security threat in those states.