By Camillus Eboh
ABUJA, April 15 (Reuters) - Nigeria has ordered a full and independent investigation into a military airstrike on a market that left at least 200 people feared dead, while defending the operation that it said targeted Islamist militants based in an enclave controlled by insurgents.
Saturday's airstrike is the latest to have caused heavy civilian casualties in northeast Nigeria, where battlelines are blurred.
As Islamist militants control territories, markets and supply routes, while civilians move through restricted areas for survival, rights groups have warned strikes on contested spaces carry a high risk of killing bystanders.
Information Minister Mohammed Idris expressed regret for civilian casualties but said the Air Force hit "confirmed terrorist targets" in Jilli village, a high-risk no-go zone in Gubio district that has for years served as a logistics hub for Boko Haram and Islamic State offshoot, ISWAP, in the region.
"The Federal Government reiterates that this was a deliberate, intelligence-led operation, not an indiscriminate attack, conducted in one of the most active insurgent corridors in the northeast," Idris said in a statement late on Tuesday.
He said the investigation would look into the operation's planning and execution.
Authorities said Jilli, known locally as the "terrorists' market", and the nearby Gazabure market were shut about five years ago after militants took control, with intelligence showing the area was used to collect levies, buy supplies, and plan attacks, including assaults on April 9 in Ngamdu and Benisheikh that killed a general.
Militants have waged a 17-year insurgency seeking to carve out an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria, killing thousands and displacing at least 2 million people, aid groups say, despite major military campaigns.
(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writitng by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo; editing by Barbara Lewis)
