Troops killed 13 suspected Islamists and arrested 15 others following
a raid on their camp after they massacred at least 37 people, a defence
spokesman said.
"Two were arrested on (Thursday) while 13 others
were arrested today (Friday) while 13 of them died following a raid on
their makeshift camp," major general Chris Olukolade told AFP.
He did not give details of the raid.
The camp is located between Borno and Adamawa, he said.
He
said that some of the militants who escaped from an earlier raid have
also been arrested in and around Maiduguri in Borno State.
Suspected
Boko Haram gunmen late Wednesday killed at least 37 people in three
separate attacks in Adamawa state, including at a theological college.
The
attacks came just a day after Islamist militant fighters were blamed
for killing 43 people, most of them students, as they slept at a
boarding school in Yobe state.
The ongoing military offensive has
failed to crush the insurgency and nearly 300 people have been killed in
a range of attacks already this year.
The United Nations
meanwhile said on Thursday that nearly 300,000 people, more than half of
them children, had fled their homes in the three states from May to
January 1 because of the violence.
The presidency on Friday said the country was at war with the Islamist sect.
Presidency spokesman Doyin Okupe told Channels television station that the Boko Haram conflict was a "war situation".
"We are dealing with a very, very serious enemy," he said.
"We
are engaged in a war that has been internationalised," he added in an
apparent reference to Boko Haram's reported but unconfirmed presence in
neighbouring countries like Cameroon.
"It is very difficult, very
costly in terms of lives lost. But we will overcome," Okupe said. "We
are in the dying phase of this insurgency.
