Female suicide bomber hits Nigerian barracks - witnesses
More worrying news from North East Nigeria.
PS: Gombe hasn't witnessed much violence from Boko Haram - this is very troubling.
Quote:
* Death count from earlier attacks reaches 110 - leaders
* Fleeing villagers stranded, short of food - senator
* Boko Haram has killed thousands, targeting civilians (Recasts)
By Isaac Abrak and Lanre Ola
ABUJA/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, June 8 (Reuters) - A female suicide bomber killed herself and a soldier outside an army barracks in Nigeria's northeastern city of Gombe on Sunday, the military said, as local leaders reported the death count from a string of earlier militant attacks had reached 110.
No one claimed responsibility for the blast or last week's assaults but Islamist group Boko Haram has set off bombs and killed thousands in its five-year-old bid to carve out an Islamist state in the region.
Soldiers stopped the woman as she tried to get into the barracks with explosives hidden under her robes, defence headquarters said in a statement.
The device went off, killing her and a soldier searching her, it added. "I heard a loud sound and then black smoke covering the place ... We saw soldiers moving bodies," Gombe trader Bello Kasuwankatako told Reuters.
Witnesses had earlier said between three and five people died.
Boko Haram - which dominated world headlines by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in April - has fought back against an army offensive, piling political pressure on President Goodluck Jonathan and the military to end the carnage.
Leaders from Gombe's neighbouring state of Borno told journalists on Sunday they had now buried 110 bodies from attacks on nine villages early last week - giving the first detailed breakdown on the casualties.
"It was a great tragedy. There are still corpses lying in the bushes surrounding the communities. Many of our people that fled to the top of the hills during and after the attacks are still there and now stranded," said Ali Ndume, a senator representing southern Borno.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/0...0OP0Q220140608
AFRICA/NIGERIA - "Boko Haram threatens the unity of the army", says Cardinal Onaiyeka
Important warning from Nigeria's top Catholic. If Nigeria's top Catholic cardinal is of the opinion that Boko Haram has infiltrated the Military. Then imagine what ordinary Nigerians think.
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Abuja (Agenzia Fides) - "The problem of Boko Haram threatens to undermine the unity of the Nigerian armed forces, especially if one gets to the point of interpreting what is happening in northern Nigeria as a religious clash between Christians and Muslims", says Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja to Fides Agency.
The local press reports that a dozen senior officers and several enlisted men were convicted by a martial court for having supplied arms and ammunition to Boko Haram. "Some newspapers have published the news citing military sources, but the high command of the Armed Forces has denied the news" says Cardinal Onaiyekan. "I am sure that with time we will know the truth. It is clear, however, that there are Boko Haram sympathizers within the army. It is difficult, however, to quantify how many there are".
"My fear - the Cardinal continues - is that the campaign against Boko Haram is seen as an attack against Islam. Now this is what Boko Haram simply wants. Unfortunately, even among Christians there are those who tend to present the fight against Boko Haram as a clash between Christians and Muslims. It is a very dangerous vision, which could undermine the unity of the police. In the army you have Christians and Muslims who have hitherto acted together, as soldiers of our armed forces".
http://www.fides.org/en/news/35852-A...yekan_to_Fides
Dispatches: 40,000 Reasons Why Sri Lanka Is No Model for Nigeria
Nigeria apparently plans to use the "Sri Lankan method" to deal with Boko Haram. Anyway, this "method" was deployed during Nigeria's civil war - which resulted in 1 million dead (conservative estimate).
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To crush Boko Haram insurgents, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters last week declared it would employ the “Sri Lankan method.”
It’s hard to imagine a worse idea.
Boko Haram’s brutal campaign in northern Nigeria demands urgent action to protect the civilian population. The militant Islamist group’s atrocities have killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, sparking a humanitarian crisis in Nigeria’s northeast and across national borders. Boko Haram’s April kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls has dramatically increased international attention on the problem and pressure on the government to resolve it.
But, before opting for “the Sri-Lankan method” to deal with an insurgency, Nigeria would do well to examine what that actually means.
Sri Lanka's war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), particularly in its final stages in 2009, caused tremendous and unnecessary human suffering. As the noose tightened around the insurgents – who were, like Boko Haram, responsible for numerous horrific abuses – nearly 300,000 civilians held as human shields by the LTTE became increasingly squeezed into a tiny area with little food or medicine. The military repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled the area, including a government-declared "no-fire zone" and hospitals trying to care for the sick and wounded.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/06/16/d...-model-nigeria
Any comments? Any reason to believe that this method will "work" in Nigeria?
Nigeria Military Studies Sri Lankan Tactics for Use Against Boko Haram
Nigeria Military Studies Sri Lankan Tactics for Use Against Boko Haram
Entry Excerpt:
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Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Bomb blast in Lagos yesterday?
Conflicting media reports, but government agencies deny there was a bomb blast - attribute it to "gas explosion".
Some media reports suggest a "female suicide bomber". If media reports are true, then it is a very dangerous first - the first suicide bombing in Southern Nigeria, or possibly the first Boko Haram foray south of the "Lugard line".
Very dangerous precedent.
The wreck of the vehicle is shown in the following link. Any explosive ordnance specialists here? Does this look like a car bomb or a "gas explosion"?
http://www.thecable.ng/blast-kills-3...farm-in-lagos/
The Sri Lankan ruthless option
KingJaJa in Post 100 referred to a HRW report on the Nigerian military looking at the Sri Lankan option; this was followed up by an exchange on SWJ Blog:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nig...nst-boko-haram
How Boko Haram is beating U.S. efforts to choke its financing
Interesting story.
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(Reuters) - When Washington imposed sanctions in June 2012 on Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, he dismissed it as an empty gesture.
Two years later, Shekau’s skepticism appears well founded: his Islamic militant group is now the biggest security threat to Africa's top oil producer, is richer than ever, more violent and its abductions of women and children continue with impunity.
As the United States, Nigeria and others struggle to track and choke off its funding, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials who closely follow Boko Haram provide the most complete picture to date of how the group finances its activities.
Central to the militant group’s approach includes using hard-to-track human couriers to move cash, relying on local funding sources and engaging in only limited financial relationships with other extremists groups. It also has reaped millions from high-profile kidnappings.
"Our suspicions are that they are surviving on very lucrative criminal activities that involve kidnappings," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in an interview.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0F636920140701
Lagos fuel depot blast 'no accident': experts, witnesses
This is the first Boko Haram (or whoever) operation below the "Lugard line" (boundary between historical North & Southern Nigerian protectorate).
The significance of this attack cannot be underestimated. The Nigerian government covered it up, because the likely consequences (massive reprisal killings against Northerners in Lagos), would be too much for Nigeria to handle.
The "cat is out of the bag". An AFP investigation points to a bomb blast in Lagos (and possibly a suicide bomber).
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But AFP has seen photographs of the scene showing a destroyed car plus damage to surrounding vehicles, which the British Army's former head of bomb disposal said left no doubt as to the cause.
"This was definitely an incident involving the use of high explosives," Bob Seddon, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and a specialist in improvised explosive devices (IEDs), told AFP in an email exchange after reviewing the images.
"The type of blast effects and fragmentation pattern you would get from a gas explosion are quite different," the former Royal Logistics Corps colonel said, assessing that 25-50 kilos (55-110 pounds) of improvised high explosive were used.
Senior foreign diplomats also indicated privately that the blast was deliberate, attributing the official denials to fears over the potential effects of a confirmed first attack on Lagos, which drives the country's economy.
http://news.yahoo.com/lagos-fuel-dep...032353233.html
Talking to Boko Haram by a Kiwi author
A short article 'Talking to Boko Haram' on a Swiss blogsite makes interesting reading:http://www.offiziere.ch/?p=17101
Hopelessly optimstic IMHO, but dialogue is possible - as Northern Ireland and South Africa illustrate.
Boko Haram claims attack on Lagos
Nobody outside Nigeria seems to figure out the significance of this attack. I've been shouting myself hoarse that a critical "red line" has been crossed.
Nobody is paying attention.
Quote:
Lagos (AFP) - The head of Nigeria's Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a bombing in the capital Abuja and an attack hours later in Lagos which the authorities tried to cover up, in a video obtained by AFP Sunday.
In the 16-minute video, Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau also voices support for the extremist Sunni Islamic State (IS) militants who have taken over large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
He mocks the social media and protest campaign Bring Back Our Girls, which emerged after the Islamists kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls on April 14 from the remote northeastern town of Chibok.
The girls, whose abduction has drawn unprecedented attention to Boko Haram's five-year rebellion, are not pictured in the video, which was given to AFP through similar channels as past messages.
One previous recording showed more than 100 of the hostages, some of whom are Christian, reciting Muslim prayers.
Shekau also said his loyalists carried out twin car bombings in May in the central city of Jos and a June attack at a public health college in the northern city of Kano.
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/...-in-new-video/
As you can see from this map, Lagos is very far away from Nigeria's North East. If Boko Haram can strike Lagos - the consequences are what I'll discuss (at length) when I have the time.
http://informationng.com/wp-content/...s-map-woyr.gif