Nigeria Claims to Have Killed 56 Boko Haram Militants

In the country's northeast

Nigerian government forces killed at least 56 Islamist Boko Haram fighters in a combined air and ground offensive in the northeast, the military said on Monday.

Two government soldiers were been wounded during the battle in Alafa forest on Saturday, an army spokesman in the region, Captain Aliyu Danja, said in a statement.

The figures could not be immediately verified. The military often reports significant casualties among Boko Haram, an insurgent group fighting for the past four and a half years to impose Sharia law on Nigeria, while rarely admitting large losses among its own troops or civilians.