LAGOS, Nigeria — The Boko Haram extremist group has finally been crushed — driven from its last forest enclave with fighters on the run and no place to hide, Nigeria's president declared Saturday.

His statement came as the Islamic State group, with which one faction of Boko Haram is allied, claimed an attack on an army barracks in northeast Nigeria's Yobe state “killed and wounded many.”

The communique on social media said the attack took place Thursday, the same day President Muhammadu Buhari said troops defeated Boko Haram in its Sambisa Forest stronghold in neighboring Borno state.

It was an indicator that despite Buhari's announcement, Nigeria is unlikely to see an end soon to the suicide bombings, village attacks and assaults on military outposts in northeastern Nigeria carried out by the country's homegrown Islamic extremist group. There are reports that the insurgents have been regrouping in Taraba and Bauchi states, south of their northeastern stronghold in Borno state, and taking advantage of a decades-old conflict in central Nigeria between Muslim nomadic cattle herders and sedentary Christian farmers.

Buhari commended Nigerian troops for “finally entering and crushing the remnants of the Boko Haram insurgents at Camp Zero,” which is deep within the heart of Sambisa Forest.

The Sambisa Forest was where Boko Haram was believed to be holding some of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in April 2014 from a school in the town of Chibok — a mass abduction that brought the extremists world attention and sparked an international social media campaign #BringBackOurGirls.

Nigerian troops have freed thousands of Boko Haram captives this year, but none of the Chibok girls seized from a government boarding school.

Boko Haram's seven-year Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people, spread across Nigeria's borders, driven some 2.3 million people from their homes and created a massive humanitarian crisis.

The U.N. has warned that 5.1 million people are in danger of starving in northeast Nigeria, including in areas too dangerous to reach because of Boko Haram ambushes.