After troops from Operation Hadin Kai, assisted by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), successfully repelled an attempted attack on a military base in Banki, Bama Local Government Area of Borno, fighters of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are said to have fled in confusion on Friday.
This was revealed in a post on X by Zagazola Makama, a security and counterinsurgency expert in the Lake Chad region.
Makama claims that intelligence sources revealed that the rebels initiated the assault early on Friday morning, moving forward in huge numbers in an effort to overtake the military formation.
He claimed that the forces engaged the terrorists in a ferocious gunfight right away, successfully fending off the attack and keeping the rebels from entering the base.
The sources claim that the Nigerian Air Force rushed an aircraft to reinforce the ground forces from above while the gunfight was still going on.
According to one of the reports, “the terrorists took to their heels upon seeing the approaching aircraft and were seen scuttling into nearby bushes in disarray to escape the superior firepower of the troops and the air component.”
The terrorists were forced to give up the operation after the attempted attack was successfully thwarted, according to the sources.
Security personnel have started assessment and clearance operations in the region, thus there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Banki, a border town in Bama LGA close to Cameroon, continues to be a crucial front-line site in Borno’s continuing counter-insurgency effort.
