Thursday, February 5, 2015

Chad retakes border town in Nigeria

Chad’s government said this week that its military had retaken a border town in Nigeria from the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, suggesting that momentum in the nearly six-year war against the group may finally be shifting.

Chad said that its forces had been attacked Tuesday along the Cameroon-Nigeria border and that they responded by crossing the frontier into the Nigerian town Gamboru Ngala, which has been held for months by Boko Haram.

The Islamists were “completely wiped out” there, with the death of nine Chadian soldiers and “more than 200” on the Boko Haram side, according to a statement from the Chadian government.

The Chadian incursion into Nigeria in pursuit of Boko Haram, its second in less than a week, underscores the failure of Nigeria’s own military to take on the Islamists despite years of civilian massacres by the militants in the country’s northeast.

Here in Nigeria’s capital, officials this week have largely denied, ignored or minimized Chad’s new role in the fight on Nigerian soil. The African Union has endorsed the creation of a 7,500-member regional force to fight the Islamists and aid Nigeria’s faltering military.

But it is the Chadians — whose soldiers played a critical role in chasing Al Qaeda’s African affiliate from Mali, in partnership with the French, two years ago — who have so far taken the lead.

Western diplomats here, exasperated by Nigeria’s ineffectual response so far, said the new Chadian presence could be a “game changer” in the fight against Boko Haram, as one put it.

“As usual, they are doing the job,” a Western diplomat said in a text message about the Chadians. “Above all with their planes, and their helicopters, and since the 20th of January.”

On Wednesday, the remaining militants in the Gamboru area counterattacked, crossing the bridge from Gamboru into the Cameroon border town Fotokol, where they killed many civilians before being pushed back by the Chadian and Cameroonian military forces, according to a Chadian military official.

A north Cameroon newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel, reported Wednesday that “Boko Haram perpetrated a massacre at Fotokol. Dozens of people were slaughtered, in the mosques, in their houses, killed in the streets.”

Chad has an interest in the Boko Haram fight on economic as well as security grounds. Many goods into the landlocked country are shipped up from the port at Douala in Cameroon through that country’s narrow northern neck, an area that has been ravaged for over a year by Boko Haram incursions from neighboring northeastern Nigeria.

“Chad’s forces are determined to crush this force of evil,” Chad’s information minister, Hassan Sylla Bakari, said Wednesday. “We are absolutely determined because Boko Haram is a threat to the entire subregion. They want to asphyxiate the Chadian economy by blocking our outlets in Nigeria and Cameroon.”
New York Times

Related story: Chad military forces enter Nigeria to fight Boko Haram

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Chad military forces enter Nigeria to fight Boko Haram

Chadian troops have crossed into northeastern Nigerian town of Gambaru to launch a ground offensive for the first time against Boko Haram fighters that control the town bordering Cameroon, Chadian military sources have said.

Fighting between the two sides began after armoured vehicles and soldiers from Chad entered the strategic Nigerian town on Tuesday in an increasingly regional conflict.

"Our troops entered Nigeria this morning. The combat is ongoing," one of the sources at Chad's army headquarters told the Reuters news agency.

Chadian forces have also taken up position close to Boko Haram strongholds along Nigeria's border with Niger.

"A contingent of about 400 vehicles and tanks is stationed between Mamori and Bosso," Niger's private radio Anfani reported.

The ground offensive followed days of intense combat between Boko Haram fighters and Chadian forces in Cameroon, during which Chad's air force carried out strikes on the rebels, Chadian and Cameroon military sources said.

Boko Haram fighters had launched attacks across the border bridge from Gambaru into Cameroon, the sources said.

Nigeria's military said the country's sovereignty was not compromised despite the presence of Chadian ground troops on its territory.

"Nigeria's territorial integrity remains intact," Defence spokesman Chris Olukolade said, claiming national forces had "planned and are driving the present onslaught against terrorists from all fronts in Nigeria, not the Chadian forces".

Chad has deployed some 2,500 troops as part of a regional effort to take on the armed group that has waged a rebellion in Nigeria's north, killing an estimated 10,000 people last year. The group says it wants to establish an Islamic state in Africa's biggest oil producer.

Major supply route

The road from Gambaru to Fotokol in Cameroon is one of Boko Haram's major supply routes. It has been hampered since Cameroon deployed special forces to the area in mid-2014, leading to fierce fighting in the area.

The Nigerian government said on Monday that Gambaru alongside several other towns in the region including Mafa, Mallam Fatori, Abadam and Marte had been liberated from Boko Haram.

In a further sign of mounting international action to combat the militant group, France said on Tuesday that French military aircraft are carrying out surveillance missions to help countries bordering Nigeria tackle Boko Haram.

The African Union (AU) has authorised a force of 7,500 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin to fight the rebels.

Aljazeera 

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

President Goodluck Jonathan escapes suicide bomber during presidential campaign rally

A female suicide bomber has blown up herself in northern Nigeria's Gombe city, minutes after President Goodluck Jonathan left a campaign rally there.

At least one person was killed and 18 others were wounded in the blast, police and hospital sources said.

Mr Jonathan is standing for re-election on 14 February against former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari.

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram has stepped up its attacks in the run-up to the contest.

It has not commented on the blast.

Explosions have also ripped through court buildings in three towns in oil-rich southern Nigeria in what police described as co-ordinated attacks.

Dynamite was suspected to have been used in the attacks in Port Harcourt city and the towns of Isiokpo and Degema in oil-rich Rivers State, regional police spokesman Ahmad Muhammed said.

There were no casualties, but the court building in Degema was "razed down and documents burnt", he is quoted by Nigeria's privately owned Daily Trust newspaper as saying.

Boko Haram is not known to be active in the oil-producing region, where militants demanding a greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth have carried out attacks in the past.'Angry youth'

In the blast in Gombe, the bomber blew herself up near a car, Gombe state police spokesman Fwaje Atajiri told the BBC.

He said a female passerby had been killed, contradicting earlier reports that three people had been killed in the blast.

Mohammed Bolari, who was at the rally in Gombe, said the explosion occurred some three minutes after Mr Jonathan's departure, AFP news agency reports.

"The president had just passed the parking lot and we were trailing behind his convoy when the explosion happened," he was quoted as saying.

Mr Jonathan addressed a rally in the north-eastern city a day after it was hit by two blasts that killed at least five people.

A local journalist told AFP the latest blast had led to unrest in Gombe, with angry youths attacking supporters of Mr Jonathan's People's Democratic Party (PDP).

"They were shouting and denouncing the president's visit which they blamed for the attack," he added.

A report in the Nigerian paper The Vanguard says the president and Mr Buhari have cancelled scheduled election rallies in Damaturu in Yobe state and Maiduguri in Borno state respectively.

It may not have been as large as other bombings in Nigeria but the timing of the latest attack will have shocked the security forces. The violence is escalating in the run-up to elections due in less than two weeks.

The attacks are blamed on Boko Haram which is against democracy and says it wants to set up a caliphate.

As well as the bombings the military is facing a huge challenge as the Boko Haram fighters try to capture more territory in the north-east.

On Sunday, the military and local vigilantes prevented the jihadists from penetrating Maiduguri city in Borno state for the second time in a week.

Military aircraft from Chad have meanwhile continued their attacks on Boko Haram positions in north-east Nigeria for a third day.

Eyewitnesses said Chadian jets and helicopters hit targets in the town of Gamboru, just across the border from Cameroon.

Chad sent forces into northern Cameroon in January, driving Boko Haram out of the area but stopping short of advancing on the militants' strongholds deeper inside Nigeria.

Chadian forces are reported to have been massing in the Cameroonian border town of Fotokol since Sunday.

The election is expected to be the most tightly contested since military rule ended in 1999 but there are growing fears that voters in areas controlled by Boko Haram will not be able to vote.

Last week, the African Union (AU) backed plans for the deployment of a 7,500-strong regional force to fight Boko Haram.

Mr Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Nigeria's north-eastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa in May 2013, but it has not stopped the Boko Haram offensive.


BBC


Related story: Angry mob stones President Goodluck Jonathan's convoy

Monday, February 2, 2015

Video - Bird flu in 11 states in Nigeria


An outbreak of bird flu in Nigerian poultry farms has spread to four more states, raising the total of affected areas to 11. That is according to the agricultural and rural development minister Akinwumi Adesina.

Nigeria's military defend Maiduguri from Boko Haram attack

The Nigerian army says it has repelled an assault by Boko Haram Islamist militants on the strategic north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

Defence Ministry spokesman Chris Olukolade is quoted as saying the attack was "contained" and the rebels suffered heavy casualties.

The militants attacked in the early hours of Sunday, and gunfire was reported on the streets of the city.

Last week's assault by Boko Haram on the city was also stopped by the army.

Boko Haram began guerrilla operations in 2009 to create an Islamic state. It has taken control of many towns and villages in north-eastern Nigeria in the last year.

The conflict has displaced at least 1.5 million people, while more than 2,000 were killed last year.'Stray bullets'

Brig Gen Olukolade was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that "the terrorists incurred massive casualties" on Sunday.

"The situation is calm as the mopping up operation in the affected area is ongoing," he added.

A number of eyewitnesses confirmed the army claim.

They also said that several civilians had been hit by stray bullets and bombs during the fighting.

The army was supported by vigilantes who recently have taken a central role in fighting the militants.

The military's handling of the six-year insurgency has often been criticised.


BBC