Nigeria has technically won the war against Boko Haram: President

PanARMENIAN.Net - Nigeria has "technically won the war" against Islamist Boko Haram militants, President Muhammadu Buhari says, BBC News reports.

He told the BBC that the militant group could no longer mount "conventional attacks" against security forces or population centers.

It had been reduced to fighting with improvised explosives devices (IED) and remained a force only in its heartland of Borno state, he said.

Boko Haram has been described as one of the world's deadliest terror groups.

Critics of the government argue that it has exaggerated the scale of its success against the militants, and that each time the army claims to have wiped out Boko Haram, the militants have quietly rebuilt.

The group's six-year insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria has led to the deaths of some 17,000 people, destroyed more than 1,000 schools and displaced more than 1.5 million people.

President Buhari has given the army until the end of this year to defeat the group - a deadline that is likely to be extended as Boko Haram is still bombing some areas despite losing towns under its control.

But he told the BBC that the jihadists had been all but driven out from Adamawa and Yobe states, and their way of operating curtailed.

"Boko Haram has reverted to using improvised explosive devices (IEDs)," he said. "Indoctrinating young guys... they have now been reduced to that.

"But articulated conventional attacks on centres of communication and populations.. they are no longer capable of doing that effectively.

"So I think technically we have won the war because people are going back into their neighbourhoods. Boko Haram as an organised fighting force, I assure you, that we have dealt with them."