ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Jihadi extremist groups, including Boko Haram and one of its factions, have been blamed for intensified attacks targeting Nigeria's military bases in the northeast of the country in the last week.
At least two officers and several soldiers have been killed in the attacks, which analysts say shows a remarkable level of coordination.
Over the weekend, Islamic extremists launched at least six attacks in Borno and Yobe states and in the wider Lake Chad region, spiriting away trucks and military hardware from the bases, according to security analysts and security reports.
The Nigerian military said in a statement that the latest attacks between Sunday and Monday were an “attempt by the terrorists to overwhelm troop positions.”
Military spokesman Sani Uba said late Monday that the troops lost an unspecified number of soldiers and a military officer, without providing further details. It adds to a death toll of several soldiers and at least one officer in the past week. Security analysts estimate at least four military officers have been killed in that period.
Africa’s most populous country has long struggled to contain the jihadi violence in its northeast. After launching an insurgency in 2009, Boko Haram has grown into different factions, including the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, which is backed by the Islamic State group. The crisis has overstretched the Nigerian military, which also battles other security crises across the conflict-battered north.
The attacks have angered Nigerians, with many accusing President Bola Tinubu's government and the ruling party of prioritizing next year's presidential election in which Tinubu is expected to seek reelection.
While ISWAP has staged a growing number of attacks against the military in recent months, observers say this is the first time in recent history that the group has successfully launched simultaneous attacks of this scale in the region.
The attacks show “a remarkable level of coordination” from the group, according to Vincent Foucher, senior research fellow with France’s National Center for Scientific Research who has extensive knowledge of the conflict.
Videos published by ISWAP showed massive weaponry and ammunition, as well as dozens of motorcycles and vehicles that the extremists said were captured during the raids. The Associated Press couldn't independently verify the details of the video.
A key goal of the jihadis is to restock their weapons arsenal, said Taiwo Adebayo with the Africa-focused Institute for Security Studies.
“When they hit those camps, they strip the base of weapons, burn it down and retreat into the forests,” Adebayo said.
Malik Samuel, a Nigerian security researcher with Good Governance Africa, said that “as long as military bases remain vulnerable to being overrun, ISWAP does not need to spend money buying arms."
The attacks are happening despite a boost from the United States, which has deployed at least 100 troops to support the Nigerian military with training and logistics. That deployment is part of a new security partnership between Nigeria and U.S. that came after U.S. President Donald Trump alleged that Christians are being targeted in Nigeria’s security crisis.
Since the U.S. began to intervene in the security crisis in December last year, its Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or ISR, flights have helped the Nigerian military to intensify aerial bombardment of jihadi hideouts, officials have said.
However, ISWAP continues to mount coordinated attacks, which highlight their sophistication and show how dominant they’ve become, Adebayo said.
A major challenge in the region remains the limited presence of security forces and the government in conflict hot spots.
Despite its successes against jihadi groups in the region, the Nigerian military lacks the capacity for sustained operations and quickly moves on to other hot spots, Adebayo said.
“So the (armed) groups are quickly regrouping and delivering attacks elsewhere,” he said.
FILE - A woman and young girl displaced from Boko Haram attacks push a cart in Dikwa, Borno province, north east Nigeria, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, File)
People listen to Babagana Zulum, the Borno state governor, in Pulka, Nigeria, Friday, March 6, 2026, after they fled an attack by Islamic militants in Ngoshe. (AP Photo/Jossy Ola)
CAIRO (AP) — Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday after authorities ended a monthslong shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted, as they were before the cutoff began during nationwide protests in January.
Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment's notice.
Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40%.
Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It's too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.
Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war's steep economic costs.
The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.
A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn't believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.
A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.
Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.
Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.
A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.
“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.
“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.
That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.
The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.
The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.
Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.
A woman checks her smartphone while sitting on a bench along a sidewalk in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
