At least 17 police officers were killed in northeastern Nigeria's Yobe state after suspected Islamist militants attacked a specialized military school that also trains police officers, a national police spokesman said late last night, Reuters reported.
Nigeria has been fighting an Islamist insurgency in the northeast of the country for more than 18 years.
Elsewhere in the northeast, in the Lake Chad basin, the second-largest Islamic State leader globally was killed in an operation carried out by US and Nigerian forces early on Saturday, US President Donald Trump and his Nigerian counterpart Bola Ahmed Tinubu said, Reuters reports.
Seventeen police officers were killed on Friday during an attack on the Nigerian Army Special Forces School in Bunya Yadi, Yobe state, police spokesman Anthony Okon Placid said in a statement.
"The police officers, who were undergoing specialized operational training at the facility, lost their lives when militants carried out a coordinated attack on the facility from multiple directions," Placid said.
He added that several soldiers were also killed, but did not specify the number of military casualties.
The Nigerian military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The violence in northeastern Nigeria began with the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009. The militant group later split, leading to the emergence of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which has stepped up attacks on military bases and security forces.
Abu Bilal al-Minuki, whose death in a joint US-Nigerian operation was confirmed by Trump and Tinubu, was a senior commander of ISWAP.
The Nigerian government has established specialized military institutions, such as the attacked training school, to try to combat the terrorist threat.
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