Jihadists kill five Nigerian soldiers in ambush: sources

KANO: Five Nigerian troops died when Boko Haram jihadists ambushed a military convoy on patrol near the border with Cameroon, security sources said on Friday.
The attack happened Thursday afternoon outside the town of Gwoza, close to the Mandara mountains.
The jihadists opened fire after one of the convoy vehicles hit a mine and exploded, said the two sources who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to speak on the attack.
"Five soldiers paid the supreme price in the ambush and several others sustained varying degrees of injuries," one of the sources told AFP.
"The Boko Haram terrorists planted the bomb between Gwoza and Bita village which is patrolled regularly by soldiers," said the second source, who gave the same death toll.
Boko Haram seized Gwoza in July 2014, making it the headquarters of their so-called caliphate.
Although it was retaken by Nigerian troops in March 2015, the jihadists still carry out raids on villages from their mountain hideouts.
Residents of the villages have fled to Gwoza and the nearby town of Pulka where they live in camps under military protection.
At least 40,000 people have been killed and more than two million others displaced since the hardline Islamist group launched a rebellion in 2009.
The insurgency has spread into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon, prompting a regional military force to be set up to fight the militants.