by Musa Abdullahi & Agency Report
Nigerian soldiers retreated from Islamist group Boko Haram’s last known stronghold in the country’s northeast on Thursday, concerned the area was booby-trapped after three pro-government vigilantes were killed by a landmine.
Reuters News Agency reports that a vigilante and a security source both confirmed the pullback from the Sambisa forest, a day after an offensive aimed at rooting out the insurgents.
“The soldiers have retreated to Bama because of mines. They had been on the road but that made them vulnerable, so they moved to the bush but there are mines planted there (too),” one soldier, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.
Nigerian forces backed by warplanes had invaded Islamist group Boko Haram’s last known stronghold, the Sambisa forest, on Wednesday, in an effort to finally defeat their six-year-old insurgency, two military sources said.
Armies from Nigeria and neighbours Chad, Niger and Cameroon have in the past two months launched a concerted push to try to crush the insurgents, who have killed thousands and kidnapped hundreds in their battle to establish an Islamic state.
The Sambisa forest in northeast Nigeria, a vast former colonial game reserve, is about 100 km (60 miles) from the village of Chibok from where Boko Haram abducted more than 200 secondary school girls a year ago. Intelligence officials had believed that this was where they were being held, although U.S. reconnaissance drones have failed to find them.
