80 U.S. troops in Chad will aid search for abducted Nigerian girls

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/02/us-nigeria-violence-idUSKBN0GX0R120140902?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Scores killed as Boko Haram insurgents overrun Nigerian town - sources

 

Islamist Boko Haram insurgents have overrun much of a northeastern Nigerian town after hours of fighting that has killed scores and displaced thousands of residents, several security sources said on Tuesday.

 

The Islamists launched an attack on the town of Bama, 70 km (45 miles) from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, on Monday. They were initially repelled but came back in greater numbers overnight, the sources and witnesses said.

 

Nigeria's defense spokesman was not immediately available for comment. The sources said there were heavy casualties on both sides. One security source said as many as 5,000 people fled.

 

Two months after Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria declared the area they seized an Islamic caliphate, Boko Haram has also for the first time explicitly laid claim to territory it says it controls in parts of northeast Nigeria.

 

It captured the remote hilly farming town of Gwoza, along the Cameroon border, during fighting last month. The group's leader Abubakar Shekau in a video declared it a "Muslim territory" that would be ruled by strict Islamic law.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/06/us-nigeria-violence-idUSKBN0H10LS20140906?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Boko Haram militants attack northeast town near Cameroon border

 

Boko Haram militants early on Saturday attacked another town in northeast Nigeria, pushing southwards in an apparent strategy to carve out an Islamist enclave in the remote north of Africa's biggest economy, residents and local officials said.

 

Fighters from the group, which has taken over several northeast towns and villages in recent weeks, stormed Gulak in the northern part of Adamawa state, near the hilly border with Cameroon where the militants are thought to have bases.

 

An eyewitness to the attack, Sabo Lukas, who escaped to the Adamawa state capital Yola, told Reuters the militants had gone from house to house in Gulak shooting, and he had seen bodies of victims. He could not give an estimate for those killed.

 

"As am talking to you they are still there killing people," Lukas said.

 

Tanko Wazumtu, an aide to Adamawa state Acting Governor Alhaji Ahmed Umaru Fintiri, also confirmed the attack, saying his own father was among those killed.

 

Nigerian military officials in Yola and in the federal capital Abuja did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Gulak is about 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Gwoza, a border town in neighboring Borno state seized by Boko Haram last month and where the group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, proclaimed a "Muslim territory" in the northeast. Another town, Madagali, between Gwoza and Gulak, had already been attacked previously.

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http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-claims-killed-man-posing-boko-haram-leader-160236483.html;_ylt=AwrBJR5MAiNUk2cAkJ3QtDMD

Nigeria military claims Boko Haram leader dead

 

Nigeria's military on Wednesday claimed for the first time that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was dead, saying troops had shot a lookalike who had been posing as the militant commander.

 

Defence spokesman Chris Olukolade told reporters in Abuja that a heavily bearded Islamist fighter identified as Mohammed Bashir died during fighting in the town of Konduga, in Borno state.

 

Bashir, who was said to have had several aliases, had "been acting or posing on videos as the deceased Abubakar Shekau, the eccentric character known as leader of the group", he added.

 

The announcement marks the first time that Nigeria's military has said publicly that Shekau was dead after two previous claims by other security sources that he had died in 2009 and 2013.

 

The military did not, however, say when Shekau was killed.

 

Earlier this year, the spokeswoman for the country's secret police, Marilyn Ogar, said "the original Shekau is dead" and that the person appearing in videos was an imposter.

 

Olukolade said on Wednesday that the name "Shekau" had become a "brand name for the terrorists".

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https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/nigeria-claims-deal-boko-haram-ceasefire-kidnapped-girls-142446708.html

Nigeria claims deal with Boko Haram on ceasefire, kidnapped girls

 

Nigeria's military and presidency on Friday claimed to have reached a deal with Boko Haram militants on a ceasefire and the release of more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

 

"A ceasefire agreement has been concluded between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad (Boko Haram)," Chief of Defence Staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh said.

 

Separately, President Goodluck Jonathan's Principal Secretary Hassan Tukur told AFP that an agreement to end hostilities had been reached following talks, as well as the release of 219 girls held captive since April.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/23/world/africa/nigeria-boko-haram-kidnappings/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Despite so-called ceasefire, Boko Haram kidnappings continue

 

Despite government claims of a ceasefire that will supposedly lead to the release of more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram, members of the Islamist terror group have abducted at least 60 young women and girls from Christian villages in northeast Nigeria, residents said Thursday.

 

The heavily armed fighters left 1,500 naira, or about $9, and kolanuts as a bride price for each of the women abducted Saturday, suggesting that they would be taken as sex slaves, residents told CNN.

 

The latest abductions in the villages of Wagga and Gwarta raise serious questions about recent Nigerian government claims that more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram in April would be released soon as part of a ceasefire with the Islamist militants.

 

Boko Haram has remained silent on the deal the government said it signed with the group in neighboring Chad last week. Nigerian officials have emphasized there is no set time line for the release, which will likely happen on a piecemeal basis instead of all at once.

 

Residents of Wagga, near a town where more than 200 girls were abducted in April, told CNN that heavily armed fighters stormed the village Saturday and took away 40 women by force.

 

The gunmen went door to door, seizing women and young girls and driving off in vans and motorcycles with them into the bush, resident Lazarus Baushe said.

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http://news.yahoo.com/boko-haram-calls-ceasefire-talks-claims-lies-222602073.html;_ylt=AwrSyCUzUlRUGQcAeLzQtDMD

Boko Haram says kidnapped schoolgirls 'married off'

 

Boko Haram has claimed the 219 schoolgirls it kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year have converted to Islam and been married off, according to a new video obtained by AFP on Friday.

 

The Islamist group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, also denied claims by Nigeria's government that it had agreed to a ceasefire and apparently ruled out future talks.

 

In addition, Shekau said the Islamists were holding a German national, who was kidnapped in Adamawa state in northeast Nigeria in July.

 

The schoolgirls were kidnapped from the remote northeast town of Chibok in Borno state in April, raising global awareness about the group whose five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has claimed an estimated 13,000 lives.

 

The new video comes after a surprise announcement by the Nigerian military and presidency on October 17 that a deal had been reached with the militants to end hostilities and return the children.

 

There was immediate scepticism about both claims. Previous ceasefires have proved fruitless and there is little trust in the influence of the purported Boko Haram envoy, Danladi Ahmadu.

 

Violence -- and fresh kidnappings -- have continued unabated since the announcement, including a triple bombing of a bus station in the northern city of Gombe on Friday that killed at least eight.

 

Nigeria's government maintains that talks are ongoing in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena.

 

But Shekau, speaking in Hausa, dressed in military fatigues and boots with a black turban, and flanked by 15 armed fighters, said: "We have not made ceasefire with anyone.

 

"We did not negotiate with anyone... It's a lie. It's a lie. We will not negotiate. What is our business with negotiation? Allah said we should not."

 

He also said he did not know Danladi.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) on Friday said worsening Boko Haram violence in northeast Nigeria and cross-border attacks inside Cameroon had heightened fear and made it increasingly difficult to relocate refugees.

 

"Cameroonian civilians are living in a state of terror due to frequent insurgent attacks," a statement said.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/world/africa/nigeria-gunmen-take-town-where-girls-were-seized.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld

Nigeria: Gunmen Take Town Where Girls Were Seized

 

Gunmen have seized Chibok, forcing thousands of people to flee the town where the group Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in April, a local official said Friday. The gunmen rode into the town in the northeastern state of Borno on Thursday, shooting from trucks and motorcycles, said Bana Lawan, chairman of the Chibok local government. “Everybody is just trying to escape with their lives,” he said. Communication with the town’s residents was difficult. Boko Haram’s fighters often destroy cellphone towers, and the military often cuts communications to areas under attack. Dozens of the girls escaped shortly after their capture in April, but 219 are still missing.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30265716?ocid=socialflow_twitter

Inside Kano mosque after gun and bomb attack

 

In Nigeria, the number of people who died in a gun and bomb attack on a mosque in the Northern city of Kano has risen to more than 100.

 

Boko Haram, the Sunni Islamist militant group, is being blamed for the attack. Human rights groups in Nigeria say the group has killed more than 2,000 people this year.

 

Will Ross reports from Kano.

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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/11/reports-deadly-boko-haram-raid-nigeria-2014113018271808626.html

Reports of deadly Boko Haram raid in Nigeria

 

Scores of people have reportedly been killed after suspected Boko Haram fighters, who arrived on motorcycles throwing bombs, raided a town in Nigeria's northeast Borno state.

 

Reuters quoted residents as saying that scores of people had been killed in the town of Shani after nightfall on Saturday, but a police source said they had been unable to verify the death toll as communications to the town had been largely cut off.

 

"They rode on motorcycles and were more than 30 men. They started throwing bombs into houses...then the Boko Haram fired shots at people fleeing," resident Ishaya Brimah told Reuters by phone from a nearby village on Sunday.

 

"They set ablaze the police station, houses and a telecom mast...I saw people fleeing, some bodies on the ground."

 

Shani is located in Nigeria's Borno state, the heartland of Boko Haram's five-year insurgency, which has displaced more than one million people.

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http://www.vox.com/2015/1/10/7525199/nigeria-boko-haram-attack

Boko Haram's massacre in Nigeria: what happened and why

 

The Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram launched its worst attack ever in the northeastern town of Baga, where it killed hundreds or possibly more.

 

The motivation is unclear, but it appears aimed at intimidating Nigerians into not voting in the coming presidential election.
Key context is the military's indifference to northern Nigerian lives. Its troops fled almost immediately, and had itself previously massacred Baga's residents.

 

What we know about the attack

 

No one knows for sure how many people the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram slaughtered during its six-day rampage in the northeastern town of Baga. A lone and speculative early report said 2,000 dead, though subsequent counts suggest "dozens" or "hundreds." But there is little question this is a massacre of breathtaking and possibly unprecedented severity, even for Boko Haram. If you zoom out, though, you can see that a crucial part of this story is the Nigerian military's repeated and demonstrated indifference to the lives of northern Nigerians.

 

Here is what appears to have happened: On Saturday, January 3, Boko Haram fighters in pickup trucks drove up to a military outpost in Baga. The Nigerian troops immediately began fleeing; Boko Haram captured the outpost by noon. In the next few days, the group raided surrounding villages, killing civilians. On Wednesday, it overran Baga itself, beginning a days-long process of methodically razing buildings and killing everyone the group saw.

 

"When they neutralized the soldiers, they proceeded to Baga and started killing everyone on sight," a witness told the New York Times. "There was no pity in their eyes. Even old men and children were killed."