Nigeria's Defense Ministry announced Sunday that 70 Boko Haram militants were killed in a series of military operations in northeastern Borno state.
In a statement, the Director of Defense Media Operations, Maj.-Gen. Edward Buba, revealed that the operations took place from Jan. 16-25 in the Tumbuktu area. Among the militants neutralized were three high-ranking leaders of the group.
Buba also confirmed the loss of 22 Nigerian soldiers in the operations, with several others injured.
Boko Haram, which has been waging an insurgency in Nigeria since the early 2000s, is responsible for mass terrorist attacks that have claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Since 2015, the group has extended its attacks to neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, resulting in at least 2,000 deaths across the Lake Chad Basin.
The ongoing violence has forced hundreds of thousands of Nigerians to flee their homes.
