 Nigeria says 19 troops missing after Boko Haram ambush Maiduguri, Nigeria (AFP) July 22, 2016 - Nineteen Nigerian soldiers have gone missing after Boko Haram Islamists ambushed troops in the restive northeast, the country's military chief of staff Major-General Lucky Irabor told reporters on Friday. Troops came under attack by Boko Haram insurgents on Thursday during a military operation aimed at clearing the area of militants in the town of Alagarno, Irabor said in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, the epicentre of the jihadists' seven-year insurgency. "When our troops were returning to their defensive location, they ran into an ambush by the terrorists who came to reinforce their fleeing comrades. The troops fought back ... killing many of them," Irabor said. "Currently, there are three officers and 16 soldiers still missing," he said, without specifying whether they were believed to be still alive. Another 16 soldiers and three civilian vigilantes fighting alongside the military were injured during the operation, he said. "Our troops have successfully conducted various other operations against Boko Haram," in the restive region in recent weeks, killing dozens of militants, he added. Boko Haram's insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and displaced more than 2.6 million people, heaping pressure on local authorities in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. A counter-offensive spearheaded by Nigeria since January last year has pushed the militants into remote border areas around Lake Chad.
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Spanish police said Saturday they had arrested a Polish millionaire suspected of masterminding a ring that smuggled assault rifles and heavy weapons into South Sudan.
The gang sold more than 200,000 AK-47s, as well as missile launchers and tanks at a time when South Sudan spiralled into civil war, investigators said.
Police said the man was detained on Tuesday along with eight individuals in a coordinated European operation, culminating a four-year inquiry.
His identity and details about who purchased the weapons have been withheld.
A resident on the island of Ibiza who hid behind tight security, the suspect had been posing as an economic adviser to the prime minister of the West African state of Guinea-Bissau and used a fake diplomatic passport, a police spokesman told AFP.
His base in Ibiza was a luxury sea-view villa, with a plaque on the gates that described the site as being consular territory, which thus had diplomatic immunity, they said.
He headed an international network of front firms with links in Belgium, France, Germany and Britain whose headquarters were based in tax havens.
The gang used the firms to procure weapons, notably in Eastern Europe, and a Polish company owned by the suspect acted as a go-between with the buyers, the spokesman said.
The Pole, arrested with eight others, allegedly used the Gambian presidential plane for one of his trips.
He is under suspicion of arms running, money-laundering, tax evasion and extorting millions of dollars from Spanish businesses.
The arrests -- part of a joint operation with EU law enforcement agency Europol -- coincided with raids in Germany and Switzerland, Spanish police said, adding they had searched several Ibiza residences and impounded a number of luxury cars.
South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011, but in 2013 a power struggle broke out between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar.
The resulting civil war left tens of thousands of people dead.
A peace agreement was reached in August 2015 but the country remains chronically unstable.
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