Boko Haram Terror Group Seizes Northern Nigerian Towns

Two weeks after the northeastern Nigerian town of Baga was attacked and torched by the Islamist terror group Boko Haram, the group launched simultaneous attacks on two municipalities near the border with Chad and Cameroon.

Monguno, a town of about 100,000 people in northeast Nigeria, is about a 135-kilometer (85-mile) drive from Maiduguri, a city of more than 600,000. Both cities are tucked into the corner of the country, near the borders with Chad and Cameroon.

Babagana Musa, a Monguno resident who fled to Maiduguri, said, "Several trucks carrying soldiers drove into Maiduguri. We learned the town (Monguno) has been taken over by Boko Haram."

Monguno, with its huge military barracks, has a strategic importance ‎in that it acts as a buffer to keep Boko Haram from advancing towards Maiduguri. Its fall means Boko Haram is in good position to advance on Maiduguri, which has been its goal for months.

Boko Haram had been confined to the fishing town of Baga since its fighters seized it January 3, hesitant to move south towards Maiduguri because of the military presence in Monguno.

The Islamists attacked the nearby village of Jintilo around 5 a.m. and were engaged in a gunbattle with troops stationed there. The village is about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the center of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

The fighting in Jintilo forced residents to evacuate their homes and flee into the city, while military authorities imposed a round-the-clock curfew to prevent infiltration by the militants.

"All the residents of neighborhoods near Jintilo have fled into the city due to the ongoing battle between troops and Boko Haram gunmen who want to enter the city," said Modu Zannari, who lives nearby.

"Boko Haram gunmen in their hundreds attacked Jintilo around 5 a.m., just before the morning prayers, but soldiers stationed there fought back," Zannari said

"Since 5 a.m. all we hear are cracking of guns and booming explosions coming from the direction of Jintilo," said Babakaka Said, a resident of another neighborhood near the scene of the fighting.

"There have been radio announcements of indefinite curfew in the city and we have all been asked to remain indoors," said Adam Kolo‎, who lives in the heart of the city.

Hundreds of troop reinforcements deployed in Jintilo and military jets carried out aerial bombardment of Boko Haram positions, said a member of a civilian vigilante group fighting Boko Haram alongside troops.


The attack came a day after President Goodluck Jonathan made a campaign stop in Maiduguri ahead of the February 14 presidential election. He has promised to end the Boko Haram insurgency if re-elected.

Boko Haram is also believed to be responsible for a cross-border raid into neighboring Cameroon where three were killed and as many as 80 people were abducted- many of them children.

Nigerian Islamist Group Boko Haram Abducts Hundreds of Schoolgirls, Continues Attacks On Northern Villages

At least 200 Nigerian schoolgirls in the northeastern state of Borno were abducted last month by the islamic terrorist group Boko Haram- which literally translates to 'Western Education is Sinful'. Both the mass abduction and a subsequent video in which Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau promised to sell the captive girls off into slavery released earlier this month prompted international outrage, but Nigerian officials are no closer to finding the missing girls than they were several weeks ago.

According to at least one of the kidnapped girls who was able to escape, a nighttime attack on the nearby town of Chibok preceded the mass abduction. Boko Haram gunmen dressed in military fatigues then showed up at the girls dormitory and said they were part of a Nigerian Army detachment who had been sent to evacuate them. However, after herding the girls into waiting trucks, the convoy then started moving along back roads through dense forests instead of the main highway into town. Some of the girls sensed something was amiss and were able to escape the slow-moving convoy in the dead of night and make their way to nearby villages.

Days after Shekau's video was released, Boko Haram attacked another village along the border of Cameroon. Nigerian officials say that as many as 300 people could've been killed in the attack on the village of Gamboru Ngala, but the exact toll was difficult to confirm due to the remote location of the village and the fact that Boko Haram had torched a number of shops and building.

Despite the international outcry, the mass abduction of schoolgirls [reportedly ranging in age from 11-16- NANESB!] in Borno was not the first time Boko Haram targeted schools. In 2013, Boko Haram carried out multiple raids on boarding schools in the northern part of the country, stabbing, shooting and burning alive students in the dormitories. The islamist group has also bombed churches and government installations while carrying out brazen jailbreaks of captured members.

The group has been mostly active in the northeastern states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa and has also targeted Nigerian officials elsewhere. Officially the group is a little over a decade old, but until recently their attacks were limited to hit and run attacks on Nigerian policemen and troops. After the 2009 death of Shekau's predecessor- Mohammed Yusuf- in police custody, Boko Haram intensified their attacks against both civilian and government targets. The fall of Mummar Ghdaffi's regime in Libya after the 2011 civil wae also left open the possibility that the group was arming themselves with heavy weaponry taken from the regime's armories and spirited across several unsecure borders with the aid of allied groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

At Least 59 Boarding School Students Killed in Nothern Nigeria Islamic Terrorist Attack

Attackers from the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram stormed into a government school in the northern state of Yobe in the overnight hours on Monday, shooting and burning 59 students according to government officials and a hospital in the state capital of Damaturu. The death toll was revised upwards from earlier reports of 29 after further bodies were discovered in the brush outside the school where the attack took place.

Survivors said that the assailants arrived on the campus of the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi in 11 Toyota Hilux pickups, a government-run secondary school similar to others that Islamist group Boko Haram has targeted in the past.

All the victims were teenage boys and 11 others were seriously injured. Most of the school was burned to the ground.

Teachers at the school in Buni Yadi said the gunmen gathered the female students together before telling them to go away and get married and to abandon their education.

Earlier this month, gunmen from Boko Haram surrounded a Christian village in Borno province along the border of Cameroon and opened fire before moving through the village and torching homes. That attack on Izge village was believed to have killed 90 people.

Boko Haram has carried out terrorist attacks near Nigeria's capital, including a January 2012 series of bombings on police stations and government offices in the northern Nigerian city of Kano that killed more than 160 people in 2012. The terrorist group has also carried out intermittent bombings and jailbreaks in the country's interior and capital city of Abuja.

Despite launching a military counteroffensive against Boko Haram strongholds in northern Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan has come under criticism for his government's inability to quell the frequent Boko Haram attacks against civilians. The stated purpose of Boko Haram [who's name roughly translates to 'Western Education is Forbidden'- NANESB!] is to overthrow the secular government seated in the predominantly Christian center of the nation and impose Islamic shari'a law throughout the country.

Muslim Terrorists Kill At Least 159 in Northeastern Nigerian Attacks

Terrorists reportedly belonging to the Islamist group Boko Haram murdered scores of motorists and truckers in a pair of roadside attacks on highways running through Borno State in the northeastern part of Nigeria. The attacks were carried out by assailants wearing Nigerian military uniforms and set up roadblocks.

In the first attack, on Tuesday, Boko Haram guerrillas wearing army uniforms stopped traffic on a highway between the cities of Maiduguri and Damaturu, dragging people out of their vehicles and killing them, with 143 bodies recovered so far.

Tuesday's toll was initially given as "more than 20", but information often takes days to trickle out of the remote and sparsely populated region, where roads are bad, curfews are in force and the military has cut the phone network since May.

"We have been picking corpses off the roadsides all day, there are more in the bush," said Abdulazeez Kolomi, an Environmental Protection Agency official in Benisheik village.

"They are all travelers slaughtered by Boko Haram gunmen. We have so far picked up 143 corpses."

On Thursday, following a similar pattern, Boko Haram insurgents killed at least 16 people in an attack on travelers plying a highway from Maiduguri to Bamboa, a police source collecting bodies on the scene told Reuters.

Eyewitnesses said that uniformed gunmen stopped vehicles on the highway, ordered the passengers out and separated the women from the men before opening fire or attacking them with knives, bayonets or even power tools. Some of the dead were travelling to the neighboring state capital of Yobe to make telephone calls, since phone lines in Borno had been shut down by security forces as a precaution.

A commercial cab driver, Sani Babayo, said it was another day of horror along the Kano-Maiduguri Highway.

"We thought they were soldiers because their uniforms, vehicles and guns suggested so," recalled Mr. Babayo. "But when they ordered us to come down from the vehicle and began to ask if we are residents of Maiduguri, it immediately dawned on us that we had fallen into the hands of Boko Haram.

"After separating the women and girls from the group, they ordered the men to run into the bush for our lives. No sooner had we started running than they opened fire on us. I saw many of my passengers fall after being hit by flying bullets. I kept running for my dear life until I was out of their range of fire."

Mr. Babayo, who looked dishevelled with tell-tale bruises on his skin and blistered feet, was among few of the very lucky travellers who escaped the Tuesday carnage. Many did not.

Most of the victims were those who had gone to make phone calls in the neighbouring Yobe State capital, Damaturu, 136 km from Maiduguri.

For four months now, telecom lines have been grounded as a security strategy to combat Boko Haram. Residents of Borno State, since the restoration of phones lines in Yobe State, had had to travel over there to make calls.

A young woman, Sarah Hyeladi, was returning to Maiduguri from Damaturu, where she and her elder brother, Markus, had gone to make phones calls when they encountered gunmen. Ms. Hyeladi was lucky but her elder brother was not.

"When our vehicle was stopped at about 6 p.m., and we saw how those ahead were being shot at, Markus and I had to run into the bush, but suddenly some uniformed gunmen appeared from the bush and ordered us to go back," Ms. Hyeladi recalled.

"We had to comply because one man was pointing a big gun at us. As we were going towards where people were being killed, one of the gunmen dragged Markus and put a knife on his neck. Before I could beg them to spare him, my brother was writhing on the floor in a pool of his own blood."

"Many people died from bullet wounds but a lot were killed by something that looked like an electric saw; the moment they put it on a person's neck, the head will go off," said a middle aged woman who was spared.

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency for northern Nigeria back in May after Boko Haram staged a series of attacks against schools and churches. The group is also believed to have carried out a number of bombings and jailbreaks closer to the Nigerian capital city of Abuja earlier this year.

Boko Haram Terrorists Massacre 42 At Nigerian Boarding School

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan ordered the closing of all schools and an increased presence of troops in the northeastern state of Yobe after a deadly attack by muslim terrorists killed 42 at a boarding school in the Mamudo district over the weekend.

During the assault, Boko Haram Islamists marched students and staff into a dormitory, throwing explosive devices into the room with them. They then opened fire on the building and set it alight.

It is believed many of the victims had been sleeping as the Islamists approached the school, with the killing itself starting around 5.30am.

Survivors of the attack say their assailants surrounded the building after setting it ablaze and opened fire on anybody attempting to flee the burning structure. Among the dead are 29 pupils- authorities ordered the closing of schools until September in the wake of this weekend's attacks.

As part of a declaration of a state of emergency, Jonathan also ordered all mobile and satellite phone service cut throughout the region to disrupt Boko Haram communications. However, land lines are extremely rare in the region, and the move was criticized by local officials who say the move also prevents residents from reporting any suspicious activity to authorities.

Some area residents have speculated that the attack on the boarding school could be retaliation after a government raid killed 20 members of Boko Haram after a raid near the village of Dogon Kuka last week. In the last two years, Boko Haram has stepped up attacks against schools, banks, police stations, churches and newspapers not only in the muslim-majority north, but also in the suburbs of the capitol in the predominantly Christian south.

Boko Haram- which roughly translates to 'Western education is forbidden'- started about a decade ago and has been attempting to impose islamic shari'a law in the northern part of the country, but has only recently been able to step up the lethality of their attacks. This has led many to believe Boko Haram fighters were being trained by foreign groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and armed with weapons from Mommar Ghdaffi's collapsed regime in Libya.

Boko Haram Suicide Bomber Kills 36 in Northern Nigeria Attack on Easter Sunday

Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram claimed credit for a deadly Easter Sunday bombing in the central city of Kaduna that has killed 36 people, despite an increased presence by Nigerian public security forces in troubled areas in the north.

on Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle on a busy road in a Christian neighborhood of the predominantly Muslim city. The explosion occurred in the vicinity of two churches -- one of which was the alleged target -- drawing comparisons to the Christmas day bombings in Abuja, when Boko Haram killed more than 50 people by attacking a number of churches around the capital city during mass.

“The blast shattered windows of nearby churches and business premises. Many vehicles were also destroyed. It was a big bomb because it created a huge hole in the ground,” Kaduna resident Malam Zakari told the Nigerian Tribune.

According to AllAfrica, at least 20 of the 36 killed were "achaba riders," or taxi-bike drivers who were enjoying breakfast at a local cafe.

Although active for the last decade, Boko Haram had developed something of a reputation as 'the gang that couldn't shoot straight'- Nigerian authorities were sometimes alerted to Boko Haram's activities due to bombs going off prematurely, maiming operatives in Boko Haram safehouses.

However, in recent months the group has stepped up attacks against churches and government buildings in the predominantly Muslim north. Since the end of 2011, the group has claimed responsibility for previous attacks targeting churches and Christian worshippers in Jos and the outskirts of the capital city of Abuja.

Boko Haram has also targeted recently Nigerian police and security force with roadside bombs, arson attacks on police buildings and sniper fire.

Nigerian Islamist Group Boko Haram Claims Responsibility For Deadly Suicide Bombing in Central Nigerian City of Jos

While our media and, unfortunately, our commander in chief were wringing their hands over some incinerated korans in Afghanistan, a Nigerian islamist group launched a suicide attack targetting another Christian house of worship.

Nigeria's Islamist sect Boko Haram said it was behind a suicide bomb attack Sunday that killed at least three outside a church in the central city of Jos, and warned of more such assaults.

Witnesses said a car packed with explosives rammed the gate of a perimeter fence and exploded a few metres (yards) from the wall of an 800-seat church hall in the volatile city.

The bombing is the latest of a series of almost daily attacks, most of them blamed on the Islamist sect, that have heightened tensions in central Nigeria.

"The bomber drove at top speed, and there was a loud explosion and everything was black," said churchgoer Ezekiel Gomos, who saw a black car driving fast towards the church hall around 30 minutes into the service.

The church was about 80 percent full at the time.

"If he had driven into the middle of the church it could have been worse, but God was in control," said Gomos.

Various Nigerian media outlets report that the death toll has risen to anywhere from 8 to 14 killed since Sunday's attack. There were also reports that a Christian mob burned Muslim-owned stores and attacked and killed 3 muslim men in the city in reprisal attacks.

Jos is the capital city of Nigeria's Plateau state and governor David Jonah Jang is a parishoner of the church Boko Haram targetted.

Would-Be Nigerian Underwear Bomber Sentenced in Federal Court

More than two years after attempting to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in midair at Christmastime with explosives sewn into his underwear, Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was sentenced to four life sentences at the federal courthouse in Detroit on Thursday.

"The defendant has never expressed doubt or regret or remorse about his mission," U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds told the 25-year-old Nigerian student-turned-al-Qaida-operative during a 90-minute hearing in Detroit. "To the contrary, he sees that mission as divinely inspired and a continuing mission."

"I believe the defendant poses a significant ongoing threat to the safety of American citizens everywhere," Edmunds added, saying she couldn't control his motivations, but could control his opportunity to carry them out.

Abdulmutallab remained defiant. "The mujahideen are proud to kill in the name of God, and this is exactly what God told us to do in the Koran," he told Edmunds. "The situation of one who believes in Allah is always good ... it's always a win-win situation."

He laid into the U.S. government for oppressing Muslims worldwide and federal prosecutors in Detroit for misrepresenting the facts of the case "to achieve their evil goals."

He also insisted that Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, who sent him on the mission, are still alive. Both al-Qaida leaders were killed last year by U.S. forces.

Against [standby defense lawyer Anthony] Chambers' advice, Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty on the second day of trial last October to all counts, including conspiring to commit an act of terrorism, use of a weapon of mass destruction and carrying a firearm or destructive device during a crime of violence.

Although Nigerian-based islamist group Boko Haram has been increasingly active and lethal in their attacks since late 2011, Abdulmutallab confessed to FBI agents that he had been working with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula in Yemen to help carry out the attack.

Abdulmutallab received the bomb, as well as training, from AQAP before travelling from Nigeria to Amsterdam.

There he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit, which was carrying 279 passengers and 11 crew members.

The bomb was not picked up in security checks at airports in Lagos and Amsterdam.

On board, the bomb failed to detonate completely and passengers had to put out the fire.

Abdulmutallab's father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, an influential banker who is well connected in Nigerian politics, said he had approached the US embassy officials and Nigerian authorities in 2009 to warn them about his son.

Abdulmutallab was already on a US watch list, but not a no-fly list.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula was also thought the be behind an October 2010 plot that involved parcel bombs flown overseas from Yemen with explosives hidden in ink and toner cartridges.

Nigerian Authorities Discover Explosives-Laden Vehicles Just Days After Deadly Attacks in Kano Kill 178 People

A fresh series of attacks blamed on an Islamist group tore through Nigeria's second largest city of Kano, killing at least 185 people.

KANO, Nigeria – Police say 185 people were killed in an attack by a radical Islamist sect on the northern Nigeria city of Kano.

In a statement issued late Monday, the department said 150 of the dead were civilians, 29 were police officers, three were secret police officers, two were immigration officers and one was a customs officer.

The announcement comes as police say they have found 10 unexploded car bombs in the city.

Friday's attack in Kano saw Boko Haram members hit police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of Nigeria's secret police, leaving corpses in the streets across the city.

Initial reports suggest that the death toll was 7, but rose after more than 100 bodies were brought to the morgue in the city's center.

Earlier in the month, police had arrested the suspected mastermind of a deadly series of blasts targeting Christian churches outside the capital of Abuja, but he escaped when the police convoy transporting him came under fire less than a day later.

In Kano, local police discovered vehicles laden with explosives at checkpoints and during a search of the city on Monday.

Security in Nigeria's second largest city has been beefed up since Friday when bomb attacks and fierce gun battles between the sect and police killed at least 178 people.

"The police were on a stop-and-search today and in two of the checkpoints, the Boko Haram members on sighting the checkpoints abandoned their vehicles and ran," a high-level police officer told Reuters, asking not to be named.

"The vehicles were later checked and the cars were loaded with explosives. Two brand new Hilux open pick-up vans were also found packed with explosives in the Bompai area of Kano."

Police also claim that they killed four Boko Haram operatives in Maiduguri, which is the northern town where Boko Haram was founded in 2012.

After Christmas Terrorist Attacks, Islamist Group Boko Haram Issues Ultimatum To Nigerian Christians- Leave Northern Nigeria or Die

Less than 10 days after a series of deadly bombings targeting churches during Christmas services in Nigeria an Islamist group has demanded Christians leave the Muslim-majority north within three days or be killed.

(CNN) — The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has issued an ultimatum giving Christians living in northern Nigeria three days to leave the area amid a rising tide of violence there.

A Boko Haram spokesman, Abul Qaqa, also said late Sunday that Boko Haram fighters are ready to confront soldiers sent to the area by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday.

“We will confront them squarely to protect our brothers,” Abul Qaqa said during a telephone call with local media. He also called on Muslims living in southern Nigeria to “come back to the north because we have evidence they will be attacked.”

In the wake of the Christmas attacks, Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency and the US Embassy in Abuja issues a warning that upmarket hotels in the Nigerian capital could be targeted by terrorists.

The death toll from the coordinated Christmas attacks in the northern cities of Gadaka and Damaturu as well as the church attack in the suburb of Abuja had risen to 37 as of New Year's Day.

Boko Haram, which has stepped up its attacks against police and Christians in Nigeria's north in recent years, claimed responsibility for both the Christmas attacks and a series of coordinated attacks in early November targetting churches, police stations, banks and government offices in the northern city of Damaturu that killed 67.