MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Nigeria's military said on Saturday that it killed 53 fighters from the Islamist Boko Haram group when it repelled an attack on a military base in the northeast Nigerian town of Damboa. A statement from defense spokesman Major-General Chris Olukolade added that five soldiers and a senior military officer had also been killed in an exchange of fire on Friday night. The military often reports high casualty figures for the rebels and relatively low ones on its own side.
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In a separate incident, also on Friday, a suicide bomber targeting worshippers at a mosque in the remote village of Konduga killed five people and wounded dozens, a security source said on Saturday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Boko Haram was likely to be the prime suspect. Boko Haram has killed several hundred in the past two months, as it has stepped up a campaign against civilians in the northeast. The kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram from the village of Chibok in April made world headlines.
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— Reuters