In the dusty, conflict-scarred plains of northeastern Nigeria, the war against insurgency is once again exacting a heavy toll on the country\u2019s military leadership. Within just three months, at least\u00a0seven commanding officers and one brigadier general\u00a0have reportedly been killed in the line of duty, many of them while defending remote forward operating bases scattered across Borno State.<\/p>\n
The deaths \u2014 occurring amid a wave of coordinated insurgent assaults \u2014 underscore the continuing resilience of extremist groups such as\u00a0Boko Haram\u00a0and the\u00a0Islamic State West Africa Province, nearly seventeen years after the insurgency began.<\/p>\n
Despite sustained military campaigns, the battlefields of Borno \u2014 from the dense\u00a0Sambisa Forest\u00a0to the islands of the\u00a0Lake Chad Basin\u00a0\u2014 remain volatile.<\/p>\n
A War That Keeps Claiming Commanders<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest loss came in the early hours of\u00a0March 9, when insurgents stormed a military base in Kukawa Local Government Area, launching a coordinated assault shortly after midnight.<\/p>\n According to security sources, fighters attacked the camp from several directions, overwhelming troops after intense gun battles.<\/p>\n The commanding officer of the base,\u00a0Lt-Col Umar Faruq, was killed alongside several soldiers as militants set military vehicles ablaze and seized ammunition.<\/p>\n The attack is part of a wider surge in violence across the region. Military authorities later confirmed that insurgents had simultaneously targeted multiple locations \u2014 including Dalwa, Goniri, Kukawa and Mainok \u2014 in a series of coordinated operations between\u00a010 p.m. and 3 a.m.<\/p>\n Despite fierce resistance and reinforcement from the air component of\u00a0Operation Hadin Kai, the assaults resulted in casualties among the troops.<\/p>\n Three Commanders in One Week<\/strong><\/p>\n The Kukawa tragedy followed two other deadly incidents involving commanding officers within a week.<\/p>\n On\u00a0March 6,\u00a0Lt-Col S.I. Iliyasu, commanding officer of the\u00a0222 Battalion in Konduga, was reportedly killed when insurgents attacked troops stationed near the town.<\/p>\n Days earlier, on\u00a0March 1,\u00a0Major Umar Ibrahim Mairiga, commander of a forward operating base in\u00a0Mayenti, Bama Local Government Area, died while resisting an insurgent assault.<\/p>\n Sources said Mairiga fought fiercely before being overpowered after several soldiers retreated into the surrounding bush.<\/p>\n \u201cHe gave them a tough fight,\u201d a security source said. \u201cSeveral insurgents were killed before he was eventually overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n The officer had reportedly been deployed to the base only months earlier following a special promotion.<\/p>\n A Pattern of Targeted Attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n The killings are part of a troubling pattern. Earlier incidents include: October 2025:\u00a0The Nigerian Army confirmed the death of\u00a0Lt-Col Aliyu Saidu Paiko, commander of the\u00a0202 Battalion, during an encounter with insurgents in\u00a0Bama.<\/p>\n The insurgents\u2019 ability to mount complex attacks on fortified bases has raised concerns among security analysts and residents alike.<\/p>\n In some cases, militants reportedly arrive in large numbers, attacking from multiple directions and exploiting the darkness of night to breach defensive perimeters.<\/p>\n Civilians Caught in the Crossfire<\/strong><\/p>\n While the military absorbs heavy losses, civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict.<\/p>\n In Ngoshe, Gwoza Local Government Area, a coordinated insurgent attack on a military base reportedly left fourteen soldiers dead, with hundreds of residents fleeing toward the nearby town of Pulka. More than\u00a0100 civilians were reportedly abducted, while homes and infrastructure were destroyed.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, insurgents recently attacked\u00a0Dalwa, a community just\u00a020 kilometres from Maiduguri, forcing residents to flee only months after the Borno State government had resettled them.<\/p>\n The region has suffered catastrophic human losses since the insurgency began in 2009, with more than\u00a035,000 people killed and over two million displaced\u00a0across northeastern Nigeria and neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n A Long War With No Easy End<\/strong><\/p>\n Security experts warn that the deaths of senior officers are particularly alarming because of the years of training and experience required to produce military commanders.<\/p>\n Military Pressure Continues<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite the recent losses, the Nigerian military insists it is maintaining pressure on insurgent groups.<\/p>\n Operations have intensified across several key battlegrounds \u2014 including Sambisa Forest, the Mandara Mountains and the\u00a0\u201cTimbuktu Triangle,\u201d\u00a0a vast insurgent hideout stretching toward Lake Chad.<\/p>\n Recent operations in Konduga reportedly led to the killing of\u00a0eight Boko Haram and ISWAP fighters, with weapons and ammunition recovered by troops and members of the Civilian Joint Task Force.<\/p>\n Military authorities say follow-up operations and aerial surveillance are ongoing to track wounded militants and dismantle remaining camps.<\/p>\n A War Still Far From Over<\/strong><\/p>\n Nearly two decades after the insurgency began, northeastern Nigeria remains one of Africa\u2019s most persistent conflict zones. For soldiers stationed in the region\u2019s remote bases, the danger is constant. As Nigeria presses on with its counter-insurgency campaign, the names of the fallen commanders serve as a stark reminder of the human cost of a conflict that refuses to fade.<\/p>\n \u25cf With reports by Daily Trust<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the dusty, conflict-scarred plains of northeastern Nigeria, the war against insurgency is once again exacting a heavy toll on the country\u2019s military leadership. Within just three months, at least\u00a0seven commanding officers and one brigadier general\u00a0have reportedly been killed in the line of duty, many of them while defending remote forward operating bases scattered across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":94043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5777],"tags":[526,6460,4642,3577],"class_list":["post-98043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-features","tag-borno","tag-brigadier-general","tag-commanders","tag-seven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/94043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nInvestigations show that most of the fallen commanders died either during\u00a0direct assaults on military bases\u00a0or in\u00a0ambushes during clearance operations\u00a0\u2014 tactics increasingly used by insurgents across the region.<\/p>\n
\nJanuary 28:\u00a0A commanding officer and several soldiers killed in an ambush near\u00a0Damasak.<\/p>\n
\nThe extremist groups themselves are fragmented \u2014 sometimes fighting each other for control of territory around Lake Chad \u2014 yet they remain capable of launching devastating attacks.<\/p>\n
\nAnd for the families of the officers killed in recent months, the war has already taken its highest price.<\/p>\n