Nigerian army forces and local fighters have stymied an attempt by the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group to attack a northeastern city, killing five of the terrorists in the process.

The counterinsurgency push was made on Monday by soldiers serving Operation LAFIYA DOLE (Peace by Force) and the Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF), which groups locals seeking to liberalize the city from extremists.

“Troops of Operation LAFIYA DOLE accompanied by Civilian JTF successfully thwarted an attempt by Boko Haram terrorists on Yauri community at the outskirts of Maiduguri city, Borno State,” read a statement by army spokesman Sani Usman.

Borno State has taken the brunt of the Boko Haram militancy, which started in 2009 and has so far cost the lives of more than 20,000 people countrywide.

On April 14, 2014, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 276 girls from their secondary school in the northeastern town of Chibok in Borno. Fifty seven of the girls managed to escape afterwards, but the fate of the remaining others is still largely unknown.

Boko Haram started its campaign of militancy with the aim of toppling the central government in Nigeria. It has aligned itself with the fellow Takfiri group of Daesh, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq, and expanded its terror activities to Nigeria’s neighboring countries.

Troops from Chad, Cameroon, and Niger have joined the battle against the terrorists, helping Nigerian forces recapture a range of territories and drive the terrorists into remote areas in the Lake Chad region