Soldiers in Heavy Fighting with Boko Haram Militants from Libya

According to Tribune, Nigeria's military has been involved in heavy fighting with Islamist insurgents armed with sophisticated weapons from Libya, as it steps up an offensive aimed at flushing out Boko Haram from its North-Eastern bases.
"They have been putting up fierce resistance and they are very, very well-armed with weapons from Libya," a senior military official told The Guardian, United Kingdom (UK), adding that most of the militants who had waged a four-year battle to create an Islamist state had scattered across the region's semi-desert borders.

A renewed military campaign, including aerial bombardments of Boko Haram training camps in three remote states which were put under emergency rule this month had led to the capture of almost 200 militants and the death of dozens in a week, according to the military.

In one raid, a helicopter gunship was hit by anti-aircraft and anti-tank fire, a military source said.

In a sign of increasing concerns about jihadist movements jumping borders, Nigeria had also asked neighbouring Niger Republic for military support, as it seeks to police 870 miles of shared desert borders, underlining moves towards West African cooperation against jihadists seen as a cross-border threat.

Concerns grew particularly after Islamist militants associated with al Qaeda seized the north of Mali last year and were dislodged only after French-led military intervention.

Nurudeen Muhammed, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, delivered the request for help from President Goodluck Jonathan to his Nigerien counterpart, Mahamadou Issoufou, late on Monday, in Niamey.

"We currently have military operations underway in three states in Nigeria to combat terrorism and we would like to have Niger's support in the common fight against these terrorists," Muhammed told Niger State Television.

Military sources said Nigerian forces had faced stiff resistance by hardened Islamist rebels entrenched in the North and using cross-border routes to smuggle in weapons.

Nigeria and Niger Republic signed a bilateral defence pact in October 2012, that includes sharing intelligence on Islamist groups and joint military exercises. The deal stipulates that a request for military aid by one nation cannot be refused by the other.

The two West African nations share a porous frontier of more than 1,500 km (940 miles). The fighting in Nigeria has pushed more than a thousand refugees across the border into Niger in the past few weeks, according to United Nations (UN) estimates.

Soldiers from Niger and neighboring Chad participated with Nigerian forces in a joint assault on Boko Haram fighters last month in Baga, a fishing settlement on the shores of Lake Chad.