“Twenty-four hours ago, the head of the Nigerian Army, General Buratai, reaffirmed the commitment of the government to achieving the deadline”, Shehu says by phone from the Nigerian capital, in reference to a speech Buratai gave in Borno on Wednesday.
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Buhari himself has said he was confident the deadline would be met-but only on Boko Haram’s “conventional” assaults.
He said that radicalisation and extremism had no bases in any religion, adding that, it was not a religious or tribal war but war against all Nigerians.
The attack comes as the Nigerian government admitted it would be unable to meet its own timetable to destroy the militant uprising to the country’s north. “It doesn’t happen anywhere”.
They have also continued to strike in neighboring countries.
The Islamist militants rarely claim attacks but they are based in the north of Nigeria and often launch cross border attacks in Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
Trigger-happy Boko Haram militants attacked a village in Niger’s southern border area of Diffa on Thursday, killing 15 people, two security sources said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) learnt that the visit was a fall out of recent coordinated attacks in parts of Paris by ISIS that resulted in the death of 130 people.
Responding, Maj.-Gen. Gomert said the meeting in Dakar was fruitful and that it was significant for the two nations to discuss how to tackle Boko Haram and share intelligence. “My definition of defeating Boko Haram is neutralizing the force, and that clearly hasn’t happened in the region”.
Three of the country’s northeastern regions-Adamawa, Borno and Yobe-are still under a state of emergency as Nigerian forces battle to boost security after recapturing territory the group had seized earlier in the year.
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The Boko Haram insurgency, which has been raging for six years and has left at least 17,000 dead, has previously seen a succession of declarations predicting an end to the violence.
