Attackers in northeast Nigeria killed a brigadier general in an assault on a military base, a local government chairman told AFP on Thursday, the second such killing of a high-ranking officer in five months.

"Attackers stormed the military base in Benisheikh...destroying several military vehicles," Kaga local government chairman Zannah Lawan Ajimi told AFP in a phone interview. "Unfortunately, the brigade commander, Brigadier General O.O. Braimah, lost his life."

Two intelligence sources confirmed the killing of Braimah in the overnight assault.