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Islamic State says it killed 18 soldiers in west Africa
Chadian soldiers, part of a West African task force fighting Boko Haram militants, sit in a military pickup truck in Damasak in northeastern Nigeria, March 24, 2015. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Joe Penney
By Hesham Hajali
05/04/2019
CAIRO (Reuters) - Jihadist group Islamic State said on Thursday it had killed 13 Nigerian soldiers and five troops from a west African anti-militant force in attacks over recent days.
Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which split from Nigeria-based Boko Haram in 2016, has carried out a series of attacks in the last few months.
In its newspaper Al-Nabaa, IS said its fighters killed the Nigerians in attacks on a military barracks on Friday, a military post on Sunday, and a town on Monday, all in northeastern Borno state.
Fighters also detonated explosives on Wednesday on a vehicle in the Lake Chad region, killing five more soldiers, IS said, without specifying the country.
The militants said the vehicle was carrying troops from a multinational task force - comprising of troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon - set up to fight them.
A Nigerian military spokesman declined comment, and a spokesman for the task force could not immediately be reached.
Boko Haram has waged a decade-long insurgency in northeast Nigeria which has killed around 30,000 people and forced about 2 million to leave their homes.
(Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Andrew Cawthorne)
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