Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Borno Killings

By Uche Mbah

The Islamic state has claimed they killed more than 20 soldiers in an attack in Kareto, Northeastern Borno, according to a Reuters Agency report monitored in Lagos.

The Nigerian Army has repeatedly said that the Boko Haram insurgency has been curtailed. However, independent reports claim that the group is still occupying some towns in Borno state.

Reuters reported the group as claiming that they burnt the military barracks and tanks. The Nigerian security sources claimed that the base, home to the Nigerian Army’s 158th Battalion and 130 km (80 miles) from the state capital Maiduguri, had been overun and the commander killed.After the assault, the militants left Kareto, but remained in the area, the Agency said.

The Islamic State broke away from the mainstream Boko Haram in 2016, and had claimed to be active in the Borno axis of the insurgent’s incursion. Last month, they claimed to have killed 40 soldiers in two separate attacks on Nigerian soldiers.

IS has been under intense bombardments from their Iranian enclave, and many believe they have eyes on Nigeria as a new Subsaharan group base. Thus they had regrouped into the Islamic State of West Africa.

It is estimated that the North eastern insurgency has taken over 30,000 lives, with many displaced quartered in Internally Displaced Persons, IDP,  camps. Some International Aids Workers have also been known to have been killed by either Boko Haram or IS.