Quote Originally Posted by Chowing View Post
I am confident that there are many differences between the US raid in Pakistan that killed Bin Laden.

BH has had a great gain from this. The hostages were not freed. They held off the Brits and Nigerian security forces for "hours."
You're indeed correct, there is a huge difference in the two scenarios. OBL was not holding anyone hostage and everyone inside was considered free game.

The only reason anything lasted longer than 5 minutes is because those forces came to rescue hostages. Had they known the two were dead, the purported hours of gun battles would have been significantly quicker and without the use of small arms ammunition.

This seems more likely the case:

Quote Originally Posted by KingJaja View Post
I think that (a) the operation was compromised and (b) whoever held those hostages was a lot more competent than the Brits thought.

Boko Haram has gone out of its way to state that they weren't responsible for the hostage taking. This could mean that (a) they were behind it but are afraid of further retaliation from the Brits or (b) they were not behind it.

(Boko Haram was very proud of its achievement at the UN building last year - so they are not too averse to foreign targets).