MAIDUGURI, Nigeria: Nigeria\u2019s top military officer on Thursday told troops in a region battling increased jihadist unrest that the attacks would be quickly resolved.
\nThe Islamic State West Africa Province group and its rival Boko Haram have intensified assaults on military bases in recent weeks, notably in the northeastern state of Borno, epicenter of an insurgency dating back to 2009.
\nAccording to an AFP tally, at least 10 bases have been attacked in two months. At least 100 people, including civilians, were killed in attacks in April.
\n\u201cActions have been taken to ensure that we address the series of attacks,\u201d chief of defense staff General Christopher Musa told troops in Borno\u2019s capital Maiduguri, promising new material was being drafted in.
\nMusa said conflict in the Sahel states including Mali, Chad and Niger \u201chas put a lot of pressure on Nigeria and that\u2019s why you see recent attacks have occurred.\u201d
\n\u201cWhatever is going on is just for a short while,\u201d he said.
\nMusa suggested fencing Nigeria\u2019s borders, saying \u201cthere are countries that have fenced over a 1,500 kilometer (930 mile) stretch\u201d \u2014 roughly the length of the Nigeria-Niger frontier.
\nWhile violence has fallen from its 2014-2015 peak, the governor of Borno recently warned that the military was losing ground to jihadists, and the latest attacks have put the conflict back in the spotlight.
\nMore than 40,000 people have been killed and two million displaced in northeast Nigeria since 2009, according to the United Nations.
\nA Multinational Joint Task Force, a coalition created by Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Benin and Chad to fight cross-border armed groups, has been hampered by the withdrawal of Niger and threats by Chad to do the same.
\nAccording to a recent Nigerian intelligence report seen by AFP, there are also internal problems.
\nLate payment of salaries \u201chas been a recurring problem,\u201d particularly in the northeast, it said.
\nThe report warned of \u201cfrustration and demotivation among security personnel, which could potentially lead to mutinies or unrest, if not urgently addressed.\u201d
\nPresident Bola Tinubu this week called for the creation of a \u201cforest guards\u201d unit \u201cto flush out terrorists and criminal gangs.\u201d
\nNigeria\u2019s vast, often inaccessible forests have become havens for jihadist and armed criminal groups.
\nWhile the Nigerian army often works with local self-defense groups, questions remain over how the proposed forest guard be financed, work with existing security forces and even how long it would take to set up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria: Nigeria\u2019s top military officer on Thursday told troops in a region battling increased jihadist unrest that the attacks would be quickly resolved. The Islamic State West Africa Province group and its rival Boko Haram have intensified assaults on military bases in recent weeks, notably in the northeastern state of Borno, epicenter of an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81087,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81074\/revisions\/81087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}