Nigeria’s security forces have freed 360 men, women and children from a mountain hideout \u200bwhere they were being held by kidnappers in \u200cBorno state in its northeast, after an intelligence-led operation, the military said on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The government of the West African nation \u200bhas struggled for years to tackle insecurity, ranging \u200bfrom herder-farmer conflicts across its centre to kidnapping \u2060gangs, terrorists, militants and community defence militia that operate \u200bacross northern states.<\/p>\n
The abductees were being held by a \u200bgroup known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) deep in the Mandara mountains in the southern part of the state, the military \u200bsaid in a statement. JAS is the official \u200bArabic name of the main faction of Boko Haram.<\/p>\n
They were captured \u200cfrom \u2060various communities in the area over an unspecified period.<\/p>\n
The rescue operation was carried out by a joint task force that includes special forces, who forced JAS fighters \u200bto abandon their \u200bpositions, the \u2060military said.<\/p>\n
Two children who were in captivity died due to exhaustion and the \u200bimpact of the harsh environment that the \u200bhostages were \u2060held in, the military said.<\/p>\n
The widespread kidnappings and the ever-expanding presence of armed groups across Nigeria – Africa’s most \u2060populous \u200bcountry – are likely to be key \u200bissues in the run-up to a presidential election in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria’s security forces have freed 360 men, women and children from a mountain hideout \u200bwhere they were being held by kidnappers in \u200cBorno state in its northeast, after an intelligence-led operation, the military said on Sunday. The government of the West African nation \u200bhas struggled for years to tackle insecurity, ranging \u200bfrom herder-farmer conflicts across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,1129,27],"tags":[2170,5194,175],"class_list":["post-21062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-borno-state","tag-jamaatu-ahlis-sunna-liddaawati-wal-jihad-jas","tag-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21064,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062\/revisions\/21064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}