Nigerian army kills top Boko Haram commander, 10 militants in night raid

The Nigerian army said on Sunday it killed a top commander of Boko Haram and 10 members of the Islamic extremist group in a night raid in the northeastern part of the country.

Abu Khalid, a commander of Boko Haram in the Sambisa Forest in Borno state, was a key figure within “the terrorist hierarchy, coordinating operations and logistics in the Sambisa axis,” army spokesman Sani Uba said in a statement.

The soldiers attacked the Boko Haram militants on Saturday night in the Kodunga area of Borno state, Uba said, adding that weapons, food items and medical supplies were recovered from the militants.

The announcement comes after Boko Haram militants killed dozens of people in two separate attacks on a construction site and military base in the northeastern state earlier this week.

Boko Haram, Nigeria’s home-grown jihadis, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law.

The insurgency now includes an offshoot of the Islamic State group known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. It has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbours, including Niger, killing about 35,000 civilians and displacing more than 2 million people, according to the United Nations.