Video - 16 Nigerian soldiers killed in attack in Delta State

National defense authorities in Nigeria have ordered the arrests of those behind the killing of sixteen soldiers. 

CGTN

Related story: Nigeria military denies reprisal attack after 16 troops killed

 

Video - At least 12 people killed by a landmine in Nigeria’s Borno state

The explosion also injured seven others, with three in critical condition evacuated to Maiduguri, the state capital for medical care.

Related story: Video - Seven children killed by improvised explosive device in northeast Nigeria

 

Video - Seven children killed by improvised explosive device in northeast Nigeria

An official says the device detonated as the victims tried to retrieve it to sell it as scrap metal to a 15-year-old metal scavenger.

CGTN

Militants kill 37 villagers in latest attack in Nigeria

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Extremists in northeastern Nigeria killed at least 37 villagers in two different attacks, residents said Wednesday, highlighting once again how deadly islamic extremist rebels have remained in their 14-year insurgency in the hard-hit region.

The extremists targeted villagers in Yobe state’s Geidam district on Monday and Tuesday in the first attack in the state in more than a year, shooting dead 17 people at first while using a land mine to kill 20 others who had gone to attend their burial, witnesses said.

The Boko Haram Islamic extremist group launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 in an effort to establish their radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the region. At least 35,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced due to the extremist violence concentrated in Borno state, which neighbors Yobe.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, who took office in May, has not succeeded in ending the nation’s security crises both in the northeast and in northwest and central regions where dozens of armed groups have been killing villagers and kidnapping travelers for ransom.

The first attack occurred in the remote Gurokayeya village in Geidam when gunmen opened fire on some villagers late Monday, killing 17 of them, according to Shaibu Babagana, a resident in the area. At least 20 villagers who had gone to attend their burial were then killed on Tuesday when they drove into a land mine that exploded, Babagana added.

Idris Geidam, another resident, said those killed were more than 40. Authorities could not provide the official death toll, as is sometimes the case following such attacks.

“This is one of the most horrific attacks by Boko Haram in recent times. For a burial group to be attacked shortly after the loss of their loved ones is beyond horrific,” Geidam said.

The Yobe state government on Wednesday summoned an emergency security meeting over the attacks which it blamed on extremists that entered the state from the neighboring Borno.

“The security agencies have deployed security men to the area and we are studying a report on the infiltration in an effort to stave off future occurrences,” Abdulsalam Dahiru, a Yobe government security aide, told reporters.

By Haruna Umar, AP 

17 killed by militants in Nigeria for failing to pay 'cattle tax'

Jihadists affiliated to the Islamic State group killed 17 people in a raid on a remote village in northeast Nigeria after villagers refused to pay an illicit tax, anti-jihadist militia and a resident told AFP Tuesday.

Scores of fighters from Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) stormed the remote farming and herding village of Kayayya in Yobe State late on Monday, 150 kilometres from the state capital Damaturu, hurling explosives and opening fire, the sources said.

"The terrorists attacked the village around 8:00 pm (1900 GMT) with explosives and guns while the residents were chatting away the night," said Gremah Bukar, a militia member who assists the military fighting the jihadists.

"They then opened fire on those residents who tried to flee. They killed 17 people and injured five others," Bukar said.

According to a Yobe state police report, 20 people were killed and parts of the village razed before the militants fled. A Yobe state security official did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

The attack was in response to the villagers' refusal to pay jihadists a tax they demanded on cattle, Abubakar Adamu, said another militia member who gave the same toll.

Militants and armed groups in remote parts of Nigeria sometimes demand "taxes" on communities as a way to exercise control and raise funds.

Babagana Kyari, a resident of Geidam town, said the five injured in the Kayayya attack were taken to the general hospital in the town for medical attention.

"One of the injured victims said the ISWAP insurgents attacked the village because they told them they would not pay the cattle levy they imposed on the village," said Kyari who visited the injured at the hospital.

A Yobe state police report said 20 people were killed and that parts of the village were razed before the militants fled.

Over the last two years, jihadists have carried out attacks beyond their stronghold in northeast Borno State, the heart of the country's 14-year-long Islamist militant conflict.

Yobe, Borno state's immediate neighbour, has also borne the brunt of the jihadist violence, including deadly raids on villages, military bases, schools and markets, as well as mass abductions.

In April last year, ISWAP jihadists killed 11 people in attacks on bars and a technical college in Geidam, days after six people were killed and 16 injured in an explosion targeting another bar in northeastern Taraba state.

On Wednesday ISWAP claimed responsibility for an explosion at a bar in northeast Taraba state the day before which local police said killed six people and injured 16 others.

Nigeria's jihadist conflict has killed 40,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast since it erupted in 2009, according to the UN.

AFP

Two dozen Nigerian soldiers die in air crash and evacuation mission gone awry

At least two dozen Nigerian security operatives have died in total after a helicopter conveying dead and wounded soldiers from an evacuation mission in Niger state, 249km (155 miles) north of Abuja, crashed on Monday.

The evacuation mission had been to retrieve soldiers wounded or killed in an ambush by armed bandits in Chukuba village in the Shiroro local government area of Niger state.

The figures were given by a spokesperson for the Nigerian military, Major General Edward Buba, during a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday. He said there were 14 soldiers and seven wounded ones aboard the aircraft when it crashed, alongside two pilots and two crew members.

Buba said an investigation is under way to determine the cause of the crash.

Authorities have yet to disclose the details of the evacuation mission or any more information about the crash, including whether there were any survivors.

“These officers and men were answering the call of duty while on an evacuation mission. In their dedicated service to our beloved country, they paid the ultimate price,” President Bola Tinubu said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We will forever remember them, not just as servicemen, but as national heroes who gave their all for the peace and security of our country,” Tinubu said.

Local news outlet Leadership reported that the helicopter was evacuating the bodies of security operatives killed by bandits before crashing in Chukuba. The newspaper said sources confirmed the armed men carried sophisticated weapons that could bring a helicopter down.

The helicopter took off from Kaduna Airfield to Minna but lost contact with control towers from both Kaduna and Minna, Leadership reported.

Dogo Gide, the notorious leader of a group of bandits that has been a source of terror across parts of northwestern Nigeria bordering the countries of Niger and Chad, has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Premium Times, another local outlet.

The warlord, an ethnic Fulani from Niger state, has been linked to Ansaru, a faction of Boko Haram that drifted westwards from the restive northeast.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claim at the time of this report. 

Al Jazeera

U.S. call on investigation of Reuters report of children allegedly killed by Nigerian government

The U.S. military on Tuesday called on Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation of allegations in a Reuters report that the Nigerian army killed children in its fight against insurgents.

"The Department of Defense is concerned by the allegations reported in the Reuters article, and we join our colleagues from the State Department in urging the Government of Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation," a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement.

The U.S. military on Tuesday called on Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation of allegations in a Reuters report that the Nigerian army killed children in its fight against insurgents.

"The Department of Defense is concerned by the allegations reported in the Reuters article, and we join our colleagues from the State Department in urging the Government of Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation," a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement.

By Phil Stewart, Reuters

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Survivors of Boko Haram allegedly starved and raped by Nigerian military

 

 

The growing phenomenon of Christian insurgents in the Southern Nigeria

While Boko Haram monopolises the attention of politicians and specialists in northern Nigeria, in the south, Christian insurgents are becoming increasingly inspired by the terrorist group’s methods.


Nigeria is often portrayed as a country on the “frontline” between a predominantly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. From this perspective, observers concerned about religiously motivated violence are mostly preoccupied with Boko Haram’s bloody episodes in the Lake Chad region.

They are so preoccupied with the issue of terrorism in Africa that they pay little attention to the insurgents in southern Nigeria who also claim to be God’s followers when they take up arms.
 

Like the Jews led by Moses

Those nostalgic for the Republic of Biafra often use religious arguments to justify their rebellion. They have taken up the legacy of the secessionists who, between 1967 and 1970, posed as victims (essentially Catholics) of a genocide committed by Muslims, even though the head of the Nigerian state at the time was Christian.

Surrounded by an enemy with a much larger and superior army, who was also being supplied with arms by Arab countries, the Ibo of the Biafra region had set their sights not only on Rome, but also on the Holy Land. Since then, some of them have presented themselves as belonging to one of the lost tribes of Israel.

For example, Nnamdi Kanu – one of the leaders of the Biafran protest who was detained by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government in 2015 – says he converted to Judaism while in prison. Others have founded a Biafran Zionist Movement.

Generally speaking, protestors of all stripes denouncing the misdeeds of the ruling Muslims in northern Nigeria have found some resonance within the Ibo diaspora overseas. In fact, they have a global audience on social media and on ‘Voice of Biafra’, Kanu’s pirate radio station, which broadcasts from the UK.

Further south, along Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, the insurgents fighting the government in the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta were not left out either. Like the Ibo, some Ijaw in the region have, for example, compared themselves to the Jews who, by following Moses, freed themselves from the chains of “slavery” – from the yoke of the Muslims in the north, in their case.

The Niger Delta Avengers – which emerged in 2016 – has, among other things, denounced the “tyranny” of Abuja and called President Buhari an “Egyptian pharaoh”, rhetoric not unlike that of jihadist Salafists, who have criticised ruling dictators in the Arab world.

On a more peaceful note, the Ogoni of the Delta have also anchored their struggle around religious rhetoric. Before being hanged in 1995 by a junta then led by a Muslim from the north, writer Ken Saro-Wiwa led the first protest marches of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (Mosop), organising masses, prayer vigils and nightly Bible readings.

In direct reference to Judaism, he evoked the prophet Jeremiah’s ‘Book of Lamentations’ to equate the repression of the military regime, as well as the pollution caused by the oil companies, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the persecution of the Jews.
 

Caliphate and greed

The difference, one might say, is that the protesters in southern Nigeria are not seeking to impose a Christian state, unlike the Boko Haram jihadists who dream of establishing a caliphate.

However, there are several indications that the political is strongly influenced by the religious. The celestial cities that developed in enclaves on the edge of the large cities of the south ended up having the characteristics of proto-states within a state. In 1990, mutineers financed by evangelical churches in the Delta attempted a putsch to “cleanse” Nigeria by expelling the predominantly Muslim northern states from the federation.

Today, even drug traffickers and gangster syndicates called ‘cultists’ imitate jihadist practices. In Ibo country, for example, rival groups lay the severed heads of their enemies in front of churches to send a message to the population.

Their criminal motives certainly distance them from any religious agenda. This is not very surprising as many Boko Haram fighters are also driven by greed, much more than by Islamic ideals.

The rebels and mafiosi in the south use religion to disguise petty materialistic concerns. But it is very easy to lose oneself in it. Asari Dokubo, founder of one of the main armed groups in the delta in the early 2000s, has just proclaimed himself head of a virtual Biafra government, even though he converted to Islam in the 1990s.

By Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos

The Africa Report 

Related story: Nigerian separatist Nnamdi Kanu's Facebook account removed for hate speech

The Biafra secessionist movement in Nigeria