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ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17929 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
 Posted: 19-08-2013 23:31 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Abubakar Shekau of Nigeria's Boko Haram 'may be dead'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23761048
Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram
Nigeria's militant Islamist leader Abubakar Shekau may have been killed by the security forces during a shoot-out, an army spokesman has said.
An "intelligence report" showed that Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram group, may have died between 25 July and 3 August, Lt-Col Sagir Musa said.
Boko Haram, which has waged an insurgency in Nigeria since 2009, has not commented on the statement.
The US had put a bounty of $7m (£4.6m) on Shekau's head.
'Imposter'
The intelligence report suggested that Shekau was shot on 30 June, when soldiers raided a Boko Haram base at Sambisa Forest in north-eastern Nigeria.
"Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide - a border community in Cameroon for treatment... It is greatly believed that Shekau might have died between 25 July to 3 August 2013," Col Musa said.
A video of Shekau, released on 13 August, was "dramatised by an imposter to hoodwink the sect members to continue with the terrorism", he added.
On 14 August, the military said it had killed Boko Haram's second-in-command, Momodu Bama, also known by his alias "Abu Saad".
Correspondents say there is no independent confirmation of Shekau's or Bama's death.
Thousands of people have died since Boko Haram began its insurgency in 2009.
A claim in 2009 that Shekau had been killed turned out to be untrue, they add.
He became leader of Boko Haram after its founder, Muhammad Yusuf, died in police custody in the same year.
The insurgency became far more brutal under Shekau's leadership, with Boko Haram carrying out a wave of bombings and abductions, including that of foreigners, in its campaign to create an Islamic state across Nigeria, correspondents say.
In May, President Goodluck Jonathan declared an emergency in three north-eastern states, saying the group threatened Nigeria's existence. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17929 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 24-08-2013 14:13 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Nigerian Islamists accused of cutting throats of 44 villagers
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/24/nigerian-islamists-cut-throats
Official says attackers gouged out eyes of some survivors of raid on Dumba village
theguardian.com, Saturday 24 August 2013 10.56 BST
Islamist extremists have been accused of cutting the throats of 44 villagers in continuing attacks in an Islamic uprising in north-east Nigeria.
An official from the National Emergency Management Agency said on Saturday the attackers hit Dumba village in Borno state before dawn on Tuesday. He said the method of killing was to avoid gunfire which could attract security forces.
He said the attackers gouged out the eyes of some of the survivors.
Dumba is near the fishing village of Baga, where security forces gunned down 187 civilians in March in retaliation for an attack by extremists.
It is difficult to get information from the area, which is under a state of emergency with mobile phone and internet services cut.
Borno is one of three north-eastern states under a state of emergency declared on 14 May to crack down on the Boko Haram terrorist network.
Since 2010 more than 1,700 people have been killed in attacks by Islamist insurgents, according to an Associated Press count. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17929 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 21-09-2013 14:43 Post subject: |
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Now they strike in the capital. This will result in an inevitable crackdown where the military may well target anyone suspected of BH involvement.
| Quote: | Nigeria's 'Boko Haram': Abuja sees security forces targeted
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24178048
Nigeria's north-east has witnessed a massive military deployment since May
A cell of suspected Islamist militants has opened fire on security forces in Nigeria's capital Abuja, say officials.
The clash occurred at about 03:00 local time after a tip-off about the location of a suspected Boko Haram weapons cache, Nigeria's spy agency said.
The State Security Service did not give any details about casualties. A witness told the BBC he saw nine bodies.
However, other witnesses told Reuters news agency the shooting came during an attempt to move squatters.
Six witnesses told Reuters the house was owned by a military man who wanted them to leave his property.
The BBC's Mohammed Kabir Mohammed in Abuja says the shooting took place at a two-storey building which has just been built but is not yet complete.
Young men have been using the building to sleep in at night, he says.
Boko Haram is most active in north-eastern Nigeria, where a state of emergency was imposed in May.
If confirmed, it would be the first time Boko Haram has staged an attack in Abuja this year.
Attacks in the north-east have increased recently despite a massive military deployment to the worst-affected areas.
In the latest incident in Borno state, officials said at least 87 people had been killed by militants, who disguised themselves in military uniforms at a checkpoint outside the town of Benisheik. They shot dead those trying to flee.
The group wants to create an Islamic state across Nigeria and has waged a deadly insurgency since 2009.
'Digging for arms'
The security team which approached the building were acting on information received from two men, agents said.
"No sooner had the team commenced digging for the arms, than they came under heavy gunfire attack by other Boko Haram elements," Reuters news agency quotes a statement from State Security Service as saying.
Our reporter says the building is in Abuja's Apo district, home to a huge residential complex for Nigerian parliamentarians.
Abuja suffered two major Boko Haram attacks two years ago, when a suicide bomber rammed a car into the police headquarters, killing eight people in June 2011.
About two months after that, the group attacked the UN headquarters in Abuja, killing 23 people.
The attack near Benisheik took place on Tuesday, but news of it was slow to emerge as all phone lines have been cut off in an effort to help the military offensive.
The Boko Haram members drove into the town in about 20 pick-up trucks, the AFP news agency quoted an anonymous security source as saying.
The BBC's Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says it was one of the deadliest since the state of emergency was declared.
In the three days since the attack, health workers have been loading dead bodies onto trucks and some reports say the militants killed more than 140 people.
"Apart from the dead bodies recovered today [Thursday], we collected 55 on Wednesday and the fact is that we did not go deep into the bush where I strongly believe that many people have fallen there," Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper quotes Abdulaziz Kolomi, an official with state's environmental protection agency, as saying.
There was also an attack by suspected militants on Wednesday night in neighbouring Yobe state, which is also under a state of emergency but has not witnessed so much violence.
A resident of Buni Yadi told the BBC Hausa Service that Islamists attacked the town at about 22:30, burning the police station and other public buildings.
"A soldier was killed in a shootout and the wife of the [divisional police chief] was burnt to death in her home," state police commissioner Sanusi Rufa'i told AFP.
Local vigilante groups have been formed to help counter the militants but scores of these volunteers have been killed in recent weeks.
Last month, the army said it had killed Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau but this has not been confirmed and the militants' attacks have continued. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17929 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 27-09-2013 13:09 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Abubakar Shekau: Boko Haram chief 'shown alive' in video
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24274818
A grab taken from a video on 13 July 2013 shows the leader of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau dressed in camouflage and holding a Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle
Shekau in a previous video, released in July
A video has been released in Nigeria purportedly showing the leader of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram alive.
In August, the Nigerian military said it might have killed Abubakar Shekau during a shoot-out.
In the video a man believed to be Mr Shekau said the world "should know that he could not die except by the will of Allah".
Other previous reports of his death later proved to be unfounded.
Boko Haram, which is fighting to create an Islamic state across Nigeria, has been blamed for many violent attacks which have killed nearly 2,000 people since 2011.
In the video, the man alleged to be Mr Shekau sits in a jungle environment surrounded by dozens of lieutenants dressed in fatigues.
He makes reference to recent events, such as an attack in Benisheik, Borno state, on 17 September in which at least 142 people are reported to have been killed.
BBC Hausa's Aliyu Tanko says the man's voice sounds like that of Shekau, and the video emerged from a source previously used by the Boko Haram leader.
Scepticism
On 19 August, the Nigerian military said intelligence suggested it might have killed Mr Shekau between 25 July and 3 August.
It claimed a video apparently showing Mr Shekau and circulated to journalists on 12 August was acted by an impostor.
But hundreds of people wrote in to the BBC's Hausa social media pages to express their scepticism at the announcement, which coincided with the Nigerian authorities' launch of a new brigade with special responsibility to tackle Boko Haram.
There was no independent confirmation of the army's claims. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17929 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 29-09-2013 13:44 Post subject: |
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Really sickening, I know theres so much of this going on but it upset me when I heard about it on the radio. Shooting students in their beds.
| Quote: | Nigeria attack: Students shot dead as they slept
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24322683
Militants regularly target schools in Yobe, such as this one in Mamudo
Suspected Islamist gunmen have attacked a college in north-eastern Nigeria, killing up to 50 students.
They were shot dead as they slept in their dormitory at the College of Agriculture in Yobe state.
North-eastern Nigeria is under a state of emergency amid an Islamist insurgency by the Boko Haram group.
Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow Nigeria's government to create an Islamic state, and has launched a number of attacks on schools.
Classrooms burned
Casualty figures from the latest attack vary, but a local politician told the BBC that around 50 students had been killed.
The politician said two vanloads of bodies had been taken to a hospital in Yobe's state capital, Damaturu.
One hospital source told Reuters news agency that 26 bodies had been brought there.
College provost Molima Idi Mato, speaking to Associated Press, also said the number of dead could be as high as 50, adding that security forces were still recovering the bodies and that about 1,000 students had fled the campus.
A military spokesman in Yobe state, Lazarus Eli, told Agence France-Presse the gunmen had also set fire to classrooms.
The college is in the rural Gujba district.
In May, President Goodluck Jonathan ordered an operation against Boko Haram, and a state of emergency was declared for the north-east on 14 May.
Many of the Islamist militants left their bases in the north-east and violence initially fell, but revenge attacks quickly followed.
In June, Boko Haram carried out two attacks on schools in the region.
At least nine children were killed in a school on the outskirts of Maiduguri, while 13 students and teachers were killed in a school in Damaturu.
In July in the village of Mamudo in Yobe state, Islamist militants attacked a school's dormitories with guns and explosives, killing at least 42 people, mostly students.
Boko Haram regards schools as a symbol of Western culture. The group's name translates as "Western education is forbidden". |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17929 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 15-10-2013 12:58 Post subject: |
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The war is getting very dirty on the State side as well.
| Quote: | Hundreds dead in Nigeria detention, Amnesty says
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24528660
A screengrab taken in September and distributed to local reporters showing a man claiming to be the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau
Most of the dead are thought to be connected to the militant group Boko Haram
Hundreds of people have died in detention facilities in north-east Nigeria as the army tries to crush an Islamist militant rebellion there, according to Amnesty International.
The human rights group said some detainees died from suffocation in overcrowded cells, others from starvation and extra-judicial killings.
In Wednesday's report, it calls for an urgent investigation into the deaths.
There has not yet been an official response to the report.
But the Nigerian army has rejected all previous accusations of human rights abuses.
A senior Nigerian army officer told Amnesty that at least 950 people had died in military custody during the first half of this year, according to an advance copy of the report seen by the BBC.
Most had been accused of having links to the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Amnesty said.
Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow Nigeria's government to create an Islamic state, and has launched a number of attacks on schools.
About 50 students were shot dead earlier this month in their hostel, in an attack blamed on Boko Haram.
A state of emergency was declared in three northern states in May - Yobe, Borno and Adamawa - in response to thousands of deaths in militant attacks.
Children walking outside a charred house in the remote northeast town of Baga, Nigeria. (21 April 2013)
Many schools have been attacked by suspected Boko Haram militants
But while most of the recent news from has been about these civilian killings, BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says this latest Amnesty report shines a light on another grim side of life in northern Nigeria.
At times, the number of people killed in these detention centres was so high that there were regular mass burials, Amnesty said.
The BBC has seen photos of bodies reportedly dumped outside the mortuary in the city of Maiduguri by the military.
The bodies showed no obvious signs of having been killed in combat.
Amnesty has called for an urgent investigation, but those who follow events closely in Nigeria will know that such an investigation is highly unlikely to happen, our correspondent says. |
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