Nigeria's military said suspected Islamic State-aligned fighters and criminals were behind an attack on a base in the northwest that a resident and medical source said killed 17 security personnel.

The Islamic State West Africa Province group is active in the northeast since 2016, a thousand miles away from the northwest, known for attacks by criminal gangs known locally as bandits.

Security forces said they had repelled an attack on Sunday morning at Burkusuma camp, in Sabon Birni, Sokoto state, close to the border with Niger.

"Troops... successfully repelled an attack by suspected Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) terrorists and bandits on the Forward Operation Base (FOB) at Burkusuma," Director of Defence Information Benjamin Sawyer said in a statement Monday.

News of the attack was slow to emerge due to limited communications as authorities in Sokoto have imposed a partial restriction on mobile phone networks.

"The attackers came in large numbers using telecom network provided from a neighbouring country, "Sawyerr added.

A resident of Sabon Birni, Attahiru Umeh, said the gunmen "killed 17 security personnel including five soldiers, nine policemen and three civil defence corps officers."

A medical source at a public hospital in the capital Sokoto said he was aware of 17 bodies of "uniformed personnel" brought to the morgue in Sabon Birni.

Police and military sources declined to say how many people were killed or injured in the attack.

"Many of the ISWAP fighters were eliminated while some scrambled away with various degrees of injuries," said Sawyerr.

The military said some of the fighters fled to Bassira, in neighbouring Niger, and that efforts were ongoing with Nigerien forces to stabilise the area.

A source in Niger told AFP that "a dozen Nigerian soldiers, between 12 and 14, sought refuge in Niger, in Bassira, after an attack on their base by bandits." The soldiers were sent back to Nigeria on Sunday, the source added.

The attack happened as troops were deployed to neighbouring Zamfara state where authorities have also shut down telecom services to disrupt communication between the gangs.

Bandits have been fleeing their camps in Zamfara state and moving to neighbouring Katsina, Kaduna and Sokoto states to escape the military operation.

Sabon Birni district has been repeatedly attacked by armed groups along with neighbouring Rabah and Isa districts.

In May last year, 60 people were killed when gangs raided multiple villages in the district, according to officials.

Northwest and central Nigeria have been plagued by bandits who raid villages, stealing cattle, kidnapping for ransom and burning homes after looting them.

The gangs have been increasingly targeting schools where they kidnap schoolchildren to squeeze ransom from authorities and parents.

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