ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — An army general and several soldiers were killed during an attempt to raid a military base in northeastern Nigeria early Thursday, officials said.
The attack occurred in Benisheikh in Borno State, army spokesman Michael Onoja said in a statement, but it was repelled.
Onoja described the assailants as “terrorists,” which is the term the military uses to describe members of Islamic militant groups in the northeast of the country.
President Bola Tinubu confirmed that a general was killed in the attack.
“The insurgents’ counterattack is a sign of desperation,” he said in a statement. “I extend my condolences to the families of our gallant soldiers, led by Brigadier General Oseni Omoh Braimah, who made the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our country today in Borno State. The government will never forget their sacrifices.”
“Their sacrifices will not be in vain," Tinubu said. "Because of the courage and dedication of our troops on the front line, our resolve to defeat terrorism and all forms of violence across Nigeria is stronger than ever.”
Onoja didn’t specify how many soldiers were killed in the latest attack on military bases.
“This attack is a clear indication of the desperation of terrorist elements who, having suffered significant losses in recent operations, continue to resort to futile and ill-fated offensives against well-defended military positions,” he said. “Regrettably, the encounter resulted in the loss of a few brave and gallant soldiers who paid the supreme price in the line of duty.”
Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country, is battling a complex security crisis, especially in the north where there is a decadelong insurgency and several armed groups who kidnap for ransom.
Among the most prominent Islamic militant groups are Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, which is affiliated with the Islamic State group and known as Islamic State West Africa Province. There is also the IS-linked Lakurawa group operating in communities in the northwestern part of the country that borders Niger Republic.
The crisis has worsened recently to include other militants from the neighboring Sahel region, including the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, which claimed its first attack on Nigerian soil last year.
Earlier this year, the U.S. sent 200 troops and drones to Nigeria to assist the Nigerian military in fighting extremists. The U.S. military said that the American troops won’t engage in combat or have a direct operational role, and that Nigerian forces will have complete command authority.
The deployment is part of a new security partnership agreed on after U.S. President Donald Trump alleged that Christians are being targeted in Nigeria’s security crisis. The U.S. launched strikes against IS forces on Dec. 26.
Several thousand people in Nigeria have been killed, according to data from the United Nations. Analysts say not enough is being done by the government to protect its citizens.
FILE - Nigerian soldiers ride on an armored personnel carrier during Eid al-Fitr celebrations in Maiduguri, in Borno state, Nigeria. Thursday, Aug. 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Negotiators from Iran and the U.S. prepared for high-level talks with their ceasefire still shaky Friday, as Israel and Hezbollah traded fire and Tehran maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
There remain many issues that could derail the truce — as well as negotiations for broader deal to permanently end the war.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to the Revolutionary Guard, claimed that talks set for Saturday wouldn’t happen unless Israel stopped its attacks in Lebanon. And U.S. President Donald Trump complained that Iran was “doing a very poor job” by not allowing the free flow of ships through the strait, through which 20% of the world’s traded oil once passed.
Kuwait, meanwhile, said it faced a drone attack Thursday night that it blamed on Iran and its militia allies in the region. Though Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard denied launching any assault, it has carried out attacks across the Mideast in the past that it did not claim.
And yet, preparations for the talks between Iran and the U.S. appeared to be moving forward, with U.S. Vice President JD Vance making his way to Pakistan from Washington. Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, meanwhile, are expected to begin next week in Washington, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the matter.
Boarding Air Force Two on his way to Pakistan, Vance said he believes negotiation with Iran will be “positive.”
“We’re looking forward to the negotiation. I think it’s gonna be positive. We’ll of course see,” Vance said.
He cited Trump in saying, “If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand.”
But he added, “If they’re gonna try and play us, then they’re gonna find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
Israel’s insistence that the ceasefire in Iran does not include a pause in its fighting with Hezbollah, which joined the war in support of its backer, Iran, has threatened to scupper the deal.
The day the truce was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. It was the deadliest day in the country since the war began Feb. 28.
Trump said Thursday that he has asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dial back the strikes. Early Friday, Israel’s military said it hit approximately 10 launchers in Lebanon that had fired rockets toward northern Israel a day earlier.
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned Thursday that continued Israeli attacks on Hezbollah would bring “explicit costs and STRONG responses.”
Netanyahu, meanwhile, said that he authorized the negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible” with the aim of disarming Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the neighbors, which have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948.
The Lebanese government had not responded as of early afternoon Friday. The timing and location of the talks were first reported by Axios.
In a first statement since Israel announced direct negotiations with Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Naim Kassem urged Lebanese officials to stop offering “free concessions” but did not take a clear stance on the talks.
Two days after Israel's intense barrage, people sifted through the wreckage of their homes, trying to salvage whatever furniture and personal mementos they could find in the rubble. Some expressed gratitude that they lost only their homes and belongings, not their loved ones, as others had.
“There is no substitute for family,” said Wissam Tabila, 35. “Everything else can be replaced.”
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil prices skyrocketing, driven stocks down and roiled the world economy. Tehran's control over the waterway has proved its biggest strategic advantage in the war.
The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around $97 Friday, up more than 30% since the war started.
Before the conflict, over 100 ships passed through the strait each day — many carrying oil to Asia. With the ceasefire in place, only 12 have been recorded passing through.
Underscoring the precarious situation, a Botswana-flagged liquefied natural gas tanker attempted to travel out of the Persian Gulf via a route ordered by the Revolutionary Guard, but suddenly turned around early Friday, ship-tracking data showed.
The head of the United Arab Emirates’ major oil company, Sultan al-Jaber, said some 230 ships loaded with oil were waiting to get through the strait and must be allowed “to navigate this corridor without condition.”
Trump complained about that situation, writing on his social media platform: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz.”
“That is not the agreement we have!” Trump wrote of the trickle of ships Iran has allowed to pass.
Questions also remain over the fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — which the U.S. and Israel sought to eliminate in going to war.
The U.S. insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to make them. Iran insists its program is peaceful.
Trump has said that the U.S. would work with Iran to remove the uranium, though Tehran has not confirmed that.
The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency, Mohammad Eslami, said Thursday that protecting Tehran’s right to enrich uranium is “necessary” for any ceasefire talks.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in Iran, a top Iranian medical officer told the state-run Iran newspaper. Iran’s government has not provided any definitive death toll from the weekslong war.
In Lebanon, more than 1,888 people have been killed and 1 million have been displaced. Over a dozen people have died in Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, while 23 civilians were killed in Israel. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong; Zeke Miller, Matthew Lee and Will Weissert in Washington; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; and Kareem Chehayeb and Hussein Malla in Beirut contributed to this report.
A Lebanese civil defense worker, right, stands with a resident at the site of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A Lebanese civil defense worker looks on as an excavator operates on the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A woman carries a flag of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during a ceremony marking the 40th day since the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A poster is pasted on a motorbike windshield with graphic depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as government supporters gather to mark the 40th day since the killing of his father, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People residing in an underground shelter pack up their belongings as they prepare to leave after the announcement of a two-week ceasefire agreement between Iran and the US, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Mourners carry the coffin of Mohammad Zein al-Abedin Shehab, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier, during his funeral procession in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Displaced families extend their hands while waiting for donated food beside the tents they use as shelters after fleeing Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
