Niger army says it killed a senior Boko Haram leader in a targeted airstrike

DAKAR, Senegal — The army in Niger says it used a targeted airstrike to kill a senior leader of the Boko Haram jihadi group, which has killed thousands of people in West Africa.

Ibrahim Bakoura was killed in an Aug. 15 strike in the Lake Chad region that killed “dozens of terrorists” and Boko Haram senior leaders, the army claimed in a state television broadcast Thursday. Bakoura, who was in his mid-40s, was “tracked for several weeks” before the strike, the army said.

Boko Haram, a homegrown group of jihadis from neighboring Nigeria that is considered one of the world's deadliest armed groups, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law.

The conflict has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors, including Niger, and resulted in the d