Nigeria: Army rescued 178 people from Boko Haram

Nigerian troops rescued 178 people from Boko Haram in attacks that destroyed several of the group’s camps in the northeast of the country, an army statement said late Sunday.

Spokesman Col. Tukur Gusau said in an emailed statement that Nigerian troops freed 101 children, 67 women and 10 men.

The Nigerian Air Force reported killing "a large number" of Boko Haram fighters while repelling an attack on a village 30 miles southwest of the army operations that took place around Bama.

Sunday's statements did not specify when the attacks occurred.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to “spare no effort” to crush Boko Haram which has become the main security threat to Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy.

A multi-national joint taskforce made of 8,700 troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin is being set up in the Chadian capital N'Djamena to tackle Boko Haram.

The force was supposed to start operations on July 31 but has been dogged by a lack of funding and political will.

Last week the Nigerian army said rescued 71 kidnapped people.

Hundreds have been freed from Boko Haram captivity this year but none of the 219 girls abducted in April 2014 from a school in Chibok were among those rescued.

Boko Haram distributed a new video on Twitter on Sunday purporting to show attacks on Nigerian army barracks in the states of Borno and Yobe. The video also shows the beheading of a man in military fatigues said to be a Nigerian soldier.

According to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, an unidentified fighter, shown in the video with looted army weapons and ammunition, says the footage shows Nigeria's military has not forced Boko Haram from its positions and hemmed them into the Sambisa Forest, as the military has claimed.

Some of those rescued last week said they had been held by Boko Haram for up to one year in villages just 25 miles from Maiduguri.

Wire services