Madar (Maiduguri) - Eight Nigerian soldiers were killed on Saturday, October 17, 2026, when their military vehicle ran over a landmine near Kinuba village in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, about 25 kilometres from the border town of Gamboru near Cameroon, according to defence sources who spoke to AFP.
A military officer in the region said the troops were inspecting members of an anti-jihadist militia clearing thick vegetation along a highway when the vehicle hit the mine. "All eight soldiers in the vehicle were killed in the explosion," the officer said.
Ibrahim Liman, a member of the militia, confirmed the toll and said "the explosive was planted on the dusty road and remotely detonated by a detonating cord." A militia member supervising the clearing operation was wounded by shrapnel. The sources attributed the attack to Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which operates in the area.
The blast came on the day Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Waidi Shaibu visited Maiduguri, the state capital, following an overnight attack from Tuesday to Wednesday on a military base in Mairari in which 15 soldiers and five militia members were killed, according to military and local sources, before the attackers burned the base.
The jihadist insurgency, launched in 2009 by Boko Haram and continued by its breakaway faction, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around two million in northeastern Nigeria, according to the United Nations, and has spread to Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Both groups increasingly use roadside mines. The violence, which eased from its peak a decade ago, has been rising again over the past two years.
