At least 36 military officers were reportedly killed in an ambush in Niger by a yet-to-be-identified terrorist group that shot down a Nigerian Air Force surveillance helicopter.

DHQ spokesman Edward Buba revealed this on Thursday at the biweekly briefing by the DHQ.

NAF said its MI-171 helicopter on a casualty evacuation mission crashed on Monday near Badna, Chukuba ward of Shiroro LGA in Niger. 

The air force also said an investigation had commenced to determine the crash’s probable cause.

A DailyTrust report Wednesday indicated that terrorists claimed responsibility for shutting down the helicopter.

In reaction, Mr Buba, a major general, while fielding questions on Thursday in Abuja on the state of the investigation, restated that an investigation was ongoing to determine the cause and urged the public to be wary of propaganda by terrorists.

SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based security outfit, had in its report published on Wednesday revealed that an estimated number of 259 Nigerians were killed across Nigeria by Boko Haram’s breakaway faction and the ISIS-backed Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in 2022.

The report said the ISIS organisation took credit for nine attacks in 2022. The Jihadists also claimed responsibility for 30 attacks across the country; many of them were carried out in major northern states.

“An attack on a Catholic church in Ondo, South-West Nigeria, shocked the world in June. Although the government was quick to blame Boko Haram’s breakaway faction, the ISIS-backed Islamic State West Africa Province (who are yet to claim responsibility for the attack), 2022 has been quite a successful year for the group in its expansion goals as it carried out successful attacks in the FCT, Kano Kaduna and set up bases in Niger and neighbouring states,” stated SBM.