6 Nigerians Sentenced for Funding Boko Haram Terrorist Group

Six Nigerians are facing prison terms of ten years to life after a federal appeals court in the United Arab Emirates upheld their convictions for funding the terrorist group Boko Haram.

According to The Daily Trust newspaper, the accused were initially tried and convicted last year following their arrest in 2017.

The court in Abu Dhabi Monday sentenced Surajo Abubakar Muhammad and Saleh Yusuf Adamu to life in prison. Ibrahim Ali Alhassan, AbdurRahman Ado Musa, Bashir Ali Yusuf and Muhammad Ibrahim Isa were each given a ten-year sentence.

The newspaper said the court judgement said that between 2015 and 2016, the accused transferred $782,000 from Dubai to Nigeria to benefit Boko Haram even as associates defended their actions, saying there was nothing criminal about the transaction. 

VOA

Nigeria says it has killed Boko Haram militants in airstrike

The Nigerian air force has killed several Boko Haram militants in an airstrike in the northeastern state of Borno, an official said Monday.

Some of the militants’ structures, including a suspected fuel depot, were destroyed in the airstrike on Tumbun Allura, a Boko Haram logistics hub on the fringes of Lake Chad in northern Borno, military spokesman John Enenche said in a statement reaching Xinhua.

The air raid was executed Sunday following credible intelligence reports as well as aerial surveillance missions that identified the location, Enenche said.

“The Nigerian Air Force attack aircraft, dispatched by the Air Task Force to engage the location, scored accurate hits in the target area, resulting in the destruction of the terrorists’ fuel dump,” he said, adding several Boko Haram militants were also killed.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has been trying to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria, extending its attacks to countries in the Lake Chad Basin.

 CGTN

Nigeria Exempts Dangote Cement From Land Border Closure

Nigeria has allowed Dangote Cement to resume exports across its land borders, raising hopes that Africa’s most-populous nation may be opening up trade with neighbors after a year-long blockade.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration gave permission for Africa’s biggest cement producer to export to Niger and Togo in the third quarter for the first time in ten months, Michel Puchercos, chief executive officer, said on an investor call Monday.

The exemption to Dangote Cement is seen as a softening of the government’s position on a border closure that started in August last year, and could open the way for other businesses to fully resume exports across the country’s land barriers.

BUA Group and a gas company have received presidential approval to move goods across the land borders, Joseph Attah, the spokesperson for Nigerian Customs, said by phone from Lagos, without providing details.

Nigerian authorities closed borders with neighboring countries including Benin and Niger to curb smuggling and boost local production. Although the blockade encouraged the consumption of locally grown produce such as rice, it hurt factories across west Africa, which rely on Nigeria’s market of 200 million people.

Dangote Cement resumed land exports with “restricted volumes,” and plans to grow the trade using the sea channels, according to Puchercos. A total of 69 tons were exported through land borders in the period, less than 1% of the 11,741 tons of cement sales in the nine month through September.

Dangote Cement shares were unchanged at 185 naira per share by 11:21 a.m. on Tuesday in Lagos, the commercial capital.

The Lagos-based company’s plan to buy back some of its shares has been delayed by market volatility and low liquidity, which have affected valuation, Guillaume Moyen, acting chief financial officer, said at the same conference call. 

By Emele Onu and Tope Alake

Bloomberg 

Related story: Video - Aljazeera speaks with Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote 

Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote is building the world's largest refinery in Nigeria

Nigeria IDP camp fire displaces thousands of residents

A fire at an internally displaced persons camp in northern Nigeria left at least 7,200 people without shelter, authorities said early on Wednesday.

A total of 1,200 tents were burned in the fire at the camp in Gajiram village in Borno state, according to Yabawa Kolo, an official from Nigeria’s Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).

Officials said the incident, which occurred last week, was the latest in a “series of the annual fire outbreaks” at the camp, reported an online news website called the Premium Times.

The camp includes those who escaped the violence of the Boko Haram armed group.

Kolo said the government sent humanitarian aid to the camp’s residents.

Five children were killed and 7,457 people lost their tents in a fire last year at a refugee camp in Borno state, reported Anadolu Agency.

Armed groups have forced more than two million people to flee their homes since 2009 when Boko Haram began an armed campaign. Some 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict and millions forced from their homes.

Most of the displaced have been housed into squalid camps where they depend on food handouts from international charities.

Scores of civilians are still trapped in remote communities and are unable to flee because of a lack of security on roads.

The violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a military response.

Al Jazeera

American rescued in daring SEAL Team 6 raid in Nigeria

“They were all dead before they knew what happened.”
— US counter-terrorism source

Chalk up one successful American rescue mission and six dead captors in northern Nigeria.

US news outlets reported this weekend that the elite SEAL Team Six special forces unit had rescued American hostage Philip Walton, without suffering any casualties.

Officials had feared the gang would sell him to terrorists operating in the region, and decided to act fast.

“US forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.

“This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the US Department of State. No US military personnel were injured during the operation.

“We appreciate the support of our international partners in conducting this operation.”

Walton had been taken captive in Niger on Oct. 26.

All but one of the seven captors were killed in the pre-dawn commando raid in neighboring Nigeria, ABC News reported.

The operation involved the governments of the US, Niger and Nigeria working together to rescue Walton quickly.

The CIA provided intelligence leading to Walton’s whereabouts and Marine Special Operations elements in Africa helped locate him, ABC News reported.

The operation was carried out under the veil of darkness, as members of Seal Team 6 jumped out of a USAF transport a few kilometres from where Walton was being held.

Members of the rescue team quickly hiked to the captors’ small encampment in a copse of scrubland bushes and trees, The New York Times reported.

In the brief but intense firefight that ensued and with surveillance drones buzzing overhead, all but one of the half-dozen or so kidnappers were killed, the NYT reported.

One captor escaped into the night. Walton was not harmed in the gun battle, and he walked out to a makeshift landing zone, where a US helicopter whisked him to safety.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our military, the support of our intelligence professionals, and our diplomatic efforts, the hostage will be reunited with his family. We will never abandon any American taken hostage.”

ABC News consultant Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and retired CIA officer, said preparations for Walton’s rescue likely started when he was abducted.

“These types of operations are some of the most difficult to execute,” he said.

“Any mistake could easily lead to the death of the hostage. The men and women of JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command], and the CIA should be proud of what they did here. And all Americans should be proud of them. “

Eric Oehlerich, an ABC News consultant and retired Navy SEAL, said Walton was “lucky” that such a mission was possible such as short time after he was abducted, when others have been held for years.

“Men in these top-tier special forces units train their entire adult lives to be ready when called upon, hostage rescue operations are inherently dangerous,” he said. “Those men put someone else’s life above their own, they do so selflessly… it’s an illustration of utter commitment.”

A former US counterterrorism official emphasized generally how long the odds are for rescue in the “highly dangerous” missions — less than 30%. But the official said that it’s crucial to act as quickly as possible so that hostages don’t wind up in the hands of al Qaeda or ISIS.

“The longer a hostage is held the harder it is to find an exact location to be able and conduct a rescue operation,” the official said.

Walton, the son of missionaries, lives with his wife and young daughter on a farm near Massalata, a small village close to the border with Nigeria.

Nigerian and American officials told ABC News that they believed the captors were from an armed group from Nigeria and that it was not considered terror-related. But hostages are often sold to terrorist groups.

This region of northwest Africa is home to multiple factions aligned with both ISIS and Al Qaeda, The War Zone reported.

One of these groups, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), was responsible for the infamous ambush of US and Nigerien forces outside the southwestern village of Tongo Tongo in 2017, which led to the death of four Americans and four Nigerians.

War Zone sources said the raid included the extremely long-distance movement of forces via multiple C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft flights and the employment of a quartet of both CV-22B Osprey tilt-rotors and MC-130 special operations transports, the latter of which pushed through Rota, Spain, before continuing to their target.

AC-130 gunships and a large contingent of aerial refueling tankers also supported this operation.

— Sources: The War Zone, ABC News, New York Times

Asia Times

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Boko Haram kidnapped 300 children in addition to the 200 schoolgirls still missing