Abuja - Nigerian troops freed around 350 people held captive by Boko Haram and killed two insurgents from the Islamist extremist group in north-eastern Nigeria, a military spokesman said a day after the incident on Wednesday.
The captives were freed from Boko Haram camps around the fringes of Alagarno forest, south-west of the city of Maiduguri in Borno State, military spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said.
“The troops killed 2 Boko Haram terrorists and captured 2 notorious terrorists … at Dole village and brought down all Boko Haram terrorist flags hoisted in the village and destroyed them,” the spokesman said in a statement.
The military also responded to a “distress call” about the presence of Boko Haram in a village in the same region, Usman said.
The insurgents set fire to the village, killing an elderly woman, before fleeing and regrouping.
The Nigerian military then intercepted the insurgents as they attempted to cross a nearby bridge, killing two and wounding several others.
Last week Cameroonian and Nigerian troops took a key Boko Haram base in northern Nigeria, killing 162 Islamists.
The assault against the Islamists in Goshe near the Cameroonian border lasted from Thursday to Sunday.
Nigeria-based Boko Haram, which seeks to implement its own radical version of Islam, has killed thousands in north-eastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad since 2009.
DPA