Boko Haram Jihadists killed eight soldiers in two separate attacks on military bases in northeast Nigeria, the military and security sources said on Friday.
The raids on Wednesday and Friday were the first since the killing of a senior commander of the Islamic State group in the region on May 16.
Northeast Nigeria has seen Islamist insurgency since 2009, started by Boko Haram and joined by its rival offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
US and Nigerian forces on May 16 killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, an IS second-in-command described as the “most active terrorist” in the world, at a remote village in the northeast of the country.
CliqMetro gathered that Five troops were killed in a raid on a base in Mandaragirau at around 3:00 am on Friday, some 212 kilometres from the post attacked on Wednesday.
Nigerian military spokesman Haruna Sani said three members of militias fighting the jihadists were also killed in the attack, with the Islamist fighters exploiting “adverse weather conditions and poor visibility”.
In a statement on Friday, Sani said “Determined troops responded with a fierce counter-offensive, decisively frustrating further incursions and inflicting casualties on the attackers”.
Two days earlier late on Wednesday, fighters from ISWAP stormed a base in the town of Gajiganna, 50 kilometres from the Borno state capital Maiduguri, dislodging soldiers after an intense gun fight, local and intelligence sources told AFP.
“Three soldiers were killed in the attack by ISWAP terrorists who carted away weapons and burnt down the base,” said Ibrahim Liman, a member of an anti-jihadist militia assisting the military.
An intelligence source in the region gave the same toll and confirmed the base was “completely razed” by the jihadist fighters after troops were forced to withdraw.
The United States has deployed troops to aid in training and intelligence to help Nigeria fight jihadists.
In Nigeria’s 17 years insurgency, Tens of thousands have been killed and more than two million displaced in the northeast.