Nigeria's army has killed 20 suspected members of Boko Haram in a renewed offensive against the Islamist insurgency, a military spokesman said today.
"In the late hours of Friday November 15, 2013, troops ... Launched an offensive operation along Gwoza - Bita Damboa Road, where Boko Haram insurgents were flushed out," said Mohammad Dole, an army regional spokesman.
The town of Bita is a Boko Haram stronghold from where insurgents launch attacks on nearby isolated villages and on passing motorists, said Dole.
Twenty Boko Haram members were killed, and scores of vehicles and motorcycles destroyed, he said.
One soldier was killed and another three wounded in the operation, he added.
No independent confirmation of the army's claim was available.
The military action came after the kidnapping overnight Wednesday of a French priest in Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria from a zone French authorities have since declared dangerous for foreigners.
Boko Haram, which has in the past called for the creation of an Islamic state in Nigeria, is believed to be made up of many different factions, some of them hardcore Islamists who resist any concessions to Nigeria's secular government.
