Suspected men of the Islamist sect, Boko Haram have seized a military base in the Nigerian town of Baga. The base is used by the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), made up of soldiers from Nigeria, Chad and Niger.
According to Local residents, militants overwhelmed troops after an hours-long battle at the facility near Lake Chad.
Details later...
According to Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu, the Nigerian Air Force's fighters in the North-East of the country had been able to do considerable damage to the operations of Boko Haram insurgents in the area.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony of Course 2/2014 of the Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre (NAFRC), Amosu said the efforts of the Nigerian Air Force and the other arms of the armed forces had decimated Boko Haram insurgents, weakened their capabilities and destroyed their supply lines.
He said the Nigerian Air Force had been able to provide strategic and tactical airlift for the armed forces to be able to combat insurgency within the North-East of the country.
Amosu added that the Nigerian Air Force had been able to support the operations of the military through the airlifting of troops and ability to drop supplies where needed.
He said despite the pressure from the civil populace for a quick resolution of the crisis, the officers and men of the armed forces were not relenting in their efforts to flush out the insurgents in the North-East.
The Federal High Court in Abuja had on November 24 dismissed two counts of terrorism-related charges which were levelled against Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, the alleged mastermind of the twin bomb explosions in Nyanya, a satellite town of Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory. Ogwuche now demands for 100 million Naira from the Department of State Services (DSS) as damages for unlawful detention.
Ogwuche also demanded a public apology in two national dailies.
In a lawsuit filed for enforcement of his fundamental human rights, Ogwuche through his lawyer, Mr. Ahmed Raji, told the court that his continued detention by the State Security Service was illegal and unconstitutional and asked the court to order his release or his trial.
At the proceedings, Ogwuche's lawyer urged the court to discountenance section 27 of the Terrorism Act which the DSS was relying on to detain his client.
He argued that the said section was inferior to the constitution which stipulated a time frame within which an accused person should be arraigned.
According to him, the continued detention of the accused without prosecution is illegal and unconstitutional .
Mr. Raji asked the court to order the DSS to pay Ogwuche 100 million Naira as damages and a published apology in two national dailies as compensation for unlawful detention.
He also requested that the court should make an order releasing him on bail and preventing the DSS from further arresting or detaining him, or in the alternative charge him to court within 48 hours of the court granting his orders.
After listening to the accused person's lawyer, Justice Adeniyi Ademola adjourned the case for the prosecution to show cause as to why the orders should not be granted in favour of Ogwuche.
The suspect, who was in court, however, was not discharged, as he is being detained by the Department of State Security Service.
Ogwuche had earlier asked the court to compel the Attorney-General of the Federation and the SSS to either charge him to court or set him free.
According to witnesses, Boko Haram militants today (Dec 4) raided a cement facility owned by French group Lafarge as part of an attack on two towns in northeast Nigeria.
A resident of Ashaka in Gombe State said "the gunmen kept shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and firing guns haphazardly. They went into the cement factory and took away some vehicles."
Acoording to a staff of the company, the factory was evacuated before the raid.
Scores of gunmen dressed in military uniform arrived in Bajoga, 60 kilometres from Gombe city in a convoy of 20 vehicles at about 7:00am (2pm Singapore time). Troops managed to push the attackers out and they then drove towards the town of Ashaka, five kilometres near the border with Yobe State to the northeast.
In Bajoga, residents said the militants shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greater) and fired indiscriminately before burning down a police station in a three-hour battle with troops. "They raided two banks and set fire to offices of political parties. They also set sections of the local government secretariat on fire," said a resident.
Another resident, Sani Dankani, said the sound of gunfire and explosions forced him to flee into the nearby bush. "From where I'm standing, I can see billows of black smoke coming from different parts of the town," he added.
A local schoolteacher Sa'adu Balarabe, said troop reinforcements were sent from Gombe and a military jet which bombed the militants forced them to withdraw.Residents in Ashaka reported exchange of fire between troops and the gunmen in the town from about 11am. "All we can hear is sounds of guns and explosions," a resident said. "Heavy fighting is now going on between the gunmen and soldiers. A military jet is encircling the town," added another local, Altine Badamasi.
Yobe State government has imposed a 24-hour curfew has in the northern Nigerian city of Damaturu, a day after it was attacked by Boko Haram.
On Monday, Boko Haram set a police base on fire and attacked a university and school.
The state governor’s office said the move would allow the security forces to finish their operation to drive out the attackers.
A statement issued by an adviser to the Yobe state governor said the decision to impose a curfew on Tuesday had been "taken… as part of measures to enable the security agents, who did a great job yesterday, repelling insurgent attacks on the town, to conclude their ongoing assignment."
The curfew means that all residents will have to stay at home, forcing the closure of schools, businesses and government offices.
Damaturu has been targeted by Boko Haram a number of times before. At least 63 people were killed in an attack on churches and police in 2011 in what was then the deadliest attack of the insurgency.
Trader Bala Dauda says he saw victims dripping with blood and people missing limbs.
Witnesses and police say twin blasts exploded in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, in a crowded market where two female suicide bombers killed 70 people a week ago .
Trader Bala Dauda says he saw victims dripping with blood and people missing limbs.
He says rescue workers are evacuating the dead and wounded.
Police spokesman Gideon Jubrin said it’s too early to give a toll.
He says rescue workers are evacuating the dead and wounded.
It was gathered that the blast took place at the Maiduguri Monday Market - the same location the two female suicide bombers detonated explosive devices last week, killing several people and injuring many more.
A civil rights group, Access to Justice and eight other civil society organisations have dragged President Goodluck Jonathan before a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking an order of mandamus to compel investigation of allegation of war crimes committed by the military and Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF).
Also joined as defendant in the matter is the attorney general of the federation and minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke (SAN).
Other plaintiffs in the suit are One Voice Coalition, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, Human Rights Law Services, Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project, Network on Police Reform in Nigeria Foundation, Nigerian Automobile Technicians Association, Centre for Constitutional Governance and Centre for Constitutionalism and Militarisation.
In a motion ex parte, brought pursuant to Order 34 Rule 3(1) and (2) of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2009, the groups are seeking an order for leave to apply for an order of Mandamus compelling the respondents to exercise the legal duty to conduct a thorough, prompt, independent and impartial investigation into allegations or reports of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions made by an international human rights body, Amnesty International, whose report issued with an accompanying video footage dated August 5th 2014, depicted horrendous acts of extrajudicial killings and torture of suspected members of the Boko Haram sect carried out by members of the Nigerian military and the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF).
On grounds for reliefs sought, the plaintiffs through their counsel, Chumma Otteh, argued that it is a legal duty upon Jonathan and the AGF to conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations.
- Daily PostThere was panic in Ado-Ekiti, the capital of Ekiti State, on Monday when news filtered into town that some heavily armed gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram Islamic group attacked the Federal Prisons and freed some inmates .
According to a source, the assailants, who were said to have besieged the place about 10.30 pm yesterday, killed a prison official on guard, bombed the main gate with the aid of a rocket launcher and dynamite. All the 20 sniffer dogs tied in front of the gate were also killed. The gunmen numbered about 60. Reliable sources said the gunmen arrived in Hilux trucks, brandishing dangerous weapons such as cudgels, cutlasses, AK 47 rifles, charms and chanted 'Allahu Akbar' as they shot sporadically into the air.
A source added that the gunshots and the bombing were so deafening that the inmates had to run in different directions to prevent being mowed down by the gun-wielding assailants.
Early Monday morning, a statement aired on the state radio station had alleged that the action was carried out by APC thugs to free a leader of Oodua People's Congress, Niyi Adedipe, who was imprisoned on the order of the Court for alleged murder of a former chairman of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Chief Omolafe Aderiye.
APC has however denied the allegation, describing it as another ploy by the PDP to tarnish the image of the APC in Ekiti State. The Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Taiwo Olatubosun, who spoke via telephone said: "What shall we gain for doing that. We cannot do such things. It is not in our character to do such things."
In a bid to rescue three kidnapped foreigners, Nigerian security personnel have dispatched patrol boats into the region.
Two Pakistanis and Indian were abducted Wednesday night in the town of Emakalakala in Bayelsa State, by gunmen operating on speedboats.
According to The AP, Colonel Anka Mustapha said he's confident that the foreign construction workers will soon be rescued because of a heightened security presence that involves sending patrol boats into the region's remote creeks, rivers and swampy mangroves.
Kidnappings for ransom have become synonymous with the Niger Delta. Six Nigerian oil company workers were also kidnapped in October.
According to officials on Monday, the death toll in Afghanistan's deadliest insurgent attack this year has risen to at least 50, with 63 wounded, many of them children.
NATO has also confirmed that two of its service members were killed in the insurgent attack.
The nationality of the NATO soldiers could not be confirmed, according to protocol. The deaths bring the total for this month of foreign service members killed in Afghanistan to three. The total number killed this year is 63, 46 of them Americans.
NATO provided no further details, but the spokesman for Kabul’s police chief, Hashmat Stanekzai, said a bomb attached to a bicycle detonated near a foreign military convoy in the eastern part of the capital Kabul just before 9 a.m. One Afghan civilian was wounded, he said.
The attack, one of a rising number in Kabul in recent months, came as officials confirmed that a suicide bombing on Sunday in Paktika province, in the east of the country bordering Pakistan, had targeted local police.
The attack took place during the final of an inter-district volleyball tournament that had attracted a huge crowd. The spokesman for the provincial governor, Mokhlis Afghan, said that 42 people were killed immediately.
Seddiq Sediqqi, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the dead included 10 members of a local police force, including a police commander. He said that 53 wounded had been transported overnight by helicopters for treatment in Kabul. They included 17 children aged between 8 and 14 years old.
Witnesses said the bomber approached the police commander and shook his hand before shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) and detonating explosives carried on his body.
Abdullah, a member of the Afghan Local Police in Yahyakhail district, where the attack happened, said from his hospital bed in Kabul: “I heard the bomber shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ a split second before the explosion.”
Some armed men suspected to be members of the Islamic sect Boko Haram attacked and killed 56 fishermen in Doron-Baga, a community in Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno State.
The spokesperson of the Nigeria Vigilante Group in Borno State, Muhammed Gava, while briefing journalists on Sunday said: "According to the reports we have so far received from our members in Baga, the killed fishermen were returning from a fishing expedition they set out for on Thursday night."
"The gunmen forced them off their boats, and, at gunpoint, began to slaughter them one after the other.
“They slaughtered 48 of them whose corpses our members found near the river, while corpses of 8 others whose necks had bruises were found floating near the river bank.
"The bodies that were recovered from the river were of those whom we suspect the Boko Haram terrorists' knives could not pierce through their skins, so they had to tie their legs and hands with ropes, then dropped them into the river to die," he added.
An unknown number of people have been killed in an explosion that hit Kano State this night.
Nigeria's Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, has seized Chibok, the northeast town from which the insurgents kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in April, a local official said.
Local government chairman Bana Lawan on Friday told AP that thousands of residents are "just trying to escape with their lives."
Lawan says the fighters took Chibok on Thursday afternoon.
According to reports, some of the kidnapped girls escaped in the first couple of days after their capture from a boarding school outside the town, but 219 remain missing.
Boko Haram has taken control of several towns since the military announced a cease-fire on Oct. 17.
According to the Nigerian Air Force on Friday, it had lost another helicopter in the restive northeast, after Boko Haram rebels raided two more towns and vigilantes and hunters clawed back a key militant stronghold.
The second crash in a week happened late Thursday in Yola, the capital of Adamawa, which is one of three states that has been under emergency rule since May last year.
But there was no immediate indication that the armed Islamist movement was responsible for the crash.
The chopper crashed near a hall of residence at the Modibbo Adama University of Science and Technology causing panic among students, as weapons said to be on board apparently exploded.
"We heard a huge thundering sound which made us rush out of the hostels, thinking the school was under Boko Haram attack," said one student, Harisu Abdulaziz.
Another student said there was chaos as residents at the hostel tried to flee but were prevented by soldiers guarding the gates.
The university has been under military protection after a spate of Islamist attacks against schools in the region.
Kyari Mohammed, a lecturer at the university and a specialist in Boko Haram, said the helicopter that came down was one of two that flew over the campus.
"The crash was followed by a series of intermittent explosions inside the chopper, which people believed to be from weapons the chopper was ferrying," he said.
Air force spokesman Dele Alonge confirmed that one of its aircraft had crashed but provided no details as to the cause or casualties.
(ABUJA)
A female suicide bomber blew herself up on Wednesday at a college in Kontagora in Nigeria’s central Niger State, close to the capital Abuja, a police spokesman said.
The bomb went off as the woman was trying to enter the college’s library, a witness said.
"The female suicide bomber blew herself up before reaching her target," the police spokesman told Reuters by telephone.
- Reuters
The US has condemned attack on school children in Portuskum, Yobe State, saying it "remains committed to supporting the people of northern Nigeria in their struggle to stop the abhorrent actions of Boko Haram and associated terrorist groups."
In a statement issued in Abuja on Monday, US urged the government of Nigeria to investigate the attack in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Italso assured Nigeria of its supporting as the country confront the Boko Haram sect and associated terrorist groups.
The statement reads: "The United States condemns in the strongest terms the incessant attacks on defenseless civilians this past week, including on the occasion of Ashura in Potiskum in Yobe State and in Gombe, Gombe State, on Nov. 3; in Malam Fatori in Borno State on Nov. 6; in Azare in Bauchi State on Nov. 7; and most recently again in Potiskum on Nov. 10 by a suicide bomber who killed many students. While final numbers are not known, scores and scores of persons have been killed or injured in these attacks.
"The United States offers its sincere sympathy to the injured and to the families of the murdered. We urge the government of Nigeria to investigate these and other attacks to bring the perpetrators to justice. The United States remains committed to supporting the people of northern Nigeria in their struggle to stop the abhorrent actions of Boko Haram and associated terrorist groups."
