Multinational force says 20 jihadists killed in Lake Chad basin

Troops from a west African navy pressure killed a few 20 jihadists in 3 days during an operation inside the Lake Chad Basin, the coalition stated Sunday.

The lake basin, shared by using Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, and Niger, and its countless islets have turned out to be one of the fundamental havens for jihadists from Nigeria’s Boko Haram and its dissident branch, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP).

The four countries’ militaries revived the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) in 2015 to fight the extremists in the basin after its establishment in 1994. The force had been dormant until then.

The forces launched a new offensive in March that aimed to “completely destroy Boko Haram and other terrorist groups which plague the basin”, a senior MJTF official, who wished to remain anonymous.

Aerial support to Nigerien and Nigerian forces from the coalition allowed them to carry out “aggressive patrols… against terrorists’ positions” in the jihadist “bastion” of Tumbun Rago, in the Nigerian state of Borno, the MJTF said in a statement Saturday.

Between Wednesday and Friday, “at least 20 terrorists were neutralized” despite “strong resistance”, the coalition said.

The senior MJTF official confirmed that “neutralized” meant killed, adding that the operation took place in Cameroon and in Nigeria.

The coalition has not provided figures on how many jihadists have been killed since the operation began in March.

But an announcement on April 25, stated: “30 terrorists” were “neutralized” by using Nigerien forces within the Kaji Jiwa region in Niger by the basin. It did no longer say whilst. One soldier died, and the MJTF was introduced.

Boko Haram released an insurgency in northeast Nigeria in 2009 before it unfold in neighboring nations.

More than 36,000 human beings had been killed when you consider that, mainly in Nigeria, and 3 million were compelled to flee their houses, the United Nations says.