Boko Haram Launches Attack on Nigerian Military

City of Maiduguri target of raid

Maiduguri — Boko Haram militants launched a daring raid on the military in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri overnight, prompting a 24-hour curfew that shut airspace and cut off roads, the army, state government and eyewitnesses said.

Local residents said that hundreds of heavily armed Islamist gunmen besieged an air force and army base, destroying aircraft, razing buildings and setting shops and petrol stations ablaze in a deadly rampage.

The attack, which closed Maiduguri's civilian airport and roads into and out of the city, comes after military claims that the banned group had been successfully pushed out of urban centres into more remote, rural areas of Borno state.

Boko Haram has previously launched massive, coordinated attacks on the security services in Borno but the reported scale of the latest strike could make it one of the biggest against the military in Maiduguri in many months.