Nigeria 2013-2017

[Echo Bravo]

Amazed at how a journo can lift an article off one website, credit someone a co-founder of EO (who wasn't), add in his own imagination and interpretation of the situation, credit us (STTEP) with so much, add several years to my age - and get paid for it.
Poor research and an apparent lack of professional integrity ought to have no place in the media.

[davidbfpo]

Amazed at how a journo can lift an article off one website, credit someone a co-founder of EO (who wasn't), add in his own imagination and interpretation of the situation, credit us (STTEP) with so much, add several years to my age - and get paid for it.
Poor research and an apparent lack of professional integrity ought to have no place in the media.

Thank you Echo Bravo for that pithy assessment.

SOFREP have a five-part series on Eeben Barlow's work in Nigeria. Part 1:http://sofrep.com/40608/eeben-barlow...oko-haram-pt1/
Part 2:http://sofrep.com/40623/eeben-barlow...-strike-force/
Part 3:http://sofrep.com/40633/eeben-barlow...#ixzz3a1yhh2z8

He describes 'relentless pursuit' as:

Barlow’s key points to utilizing relentless pursuit include:

• Troops eating while on the move
• Combat tracking the enemy at a high rate of speed
• Having the ability to leap-frog ahead of the enemy via helicopter
• Utilizing communications
• Emphasizing aggression
• Maintaining proficiency in night operations
• Outgunning the enemy

Part 4:http://sofrep.com/40675/eeben-barlow...ial-narrative/
Part 5:http://sofrep.com/40700/eeben-barlow...-nigerias-war/

[Echo Bravo]

Ironically the journo mentions us ageing white mercenaries despite the "palefaces" being heavily outnumbered by our black colleagues. And then he wrote his piece as if he had actually had an interview with me - which he hadn't.

[davidbfpo]

Lindsey Hilsum, UK C4's chief international reporter, has been in Northern Cameroon, where Nigerian activity appears to be pushing Boko Haram across the international border - which straddles the local tribe, numbers of whom are with Boko Haram.

There is a six minute fim clip:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKSWiKzC4P0

Her written report:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ith-boko-haram

[davidbfpo]

A short update in The Economist:

Yet in recent weeks the group has struck back from its remote redoubts, killing more than 200 people in the week to July 5th (and more since then) in a series of attacks across the north. Bombs were detonated in the major cities of Jos and Kano, neither of which had been attacked since February.

This is not a surprise, given there is new President, but maybe unwise hence my emphasis:

Nigeria’s army, by contrast, is finding counter-insurgency far more difficult than merely liberating captured towns. It has also lost much of the support that contributed to its victories earlier this year. Mercenaries who helped turn the tide in the north-east have been sent home and Chadian soldiers have pulled back over the border.

Link:http://www.economist.com/news/middle...war-bombs-are?

[KingJaja]

Hi,

It's been a long time.

Boko Haram has come to stay, so the Nigerian State have to find a way to adjust to that reality.

The Nigerian State with an incompetent police, no biometric ID system, 10 million out of school kids and porous borders cannot solve this problem without fundamental changes & these changes will be very risky politically.

In addition to Boko Haram, there's a silent crisis in the Middle Belt (farmers vs herdsmen), separatist rumblings in the South East & of course, the Niger Delta.

Oil prices have dropped - & Iran looms over the horizon.

There is consumer inflation, purchasing power is steadily dropping. No economic policy direction.

There will be very difficult years ahead - and let nobody make you believe Boko Haram will be the only challenge or even the major challenge.

[davidbfpo]

Hi,

It's been a long time.

Kingjaja,

Indeed welcome back, it is good to have a local posting, truly "on the ground".

[AdamG]

YOLA/BAUCHI, Nigeria — Suicide bombers killed at least six people and injured 14 in a crowded market in the northeastern Nigerian town of Madagali on Friday, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said.
A police spokesman had earlier said 15 were killed, and did not identify any suspects.
Suicide bombings are common in Nigeria's northeast, the center of a bloody campaign by jihadist group Boko Haram to create an Islamic state. Madagali was also hit last month, when schoolgirl suicide bombers killed as many as 56 people in a coordinated attack on a market.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/...cid=spartandhp

[davidbfpo]

Missed this article; with a sub-title 'Every week, there are more massacres, but nobody seems to mind — not even their own government'
Link:http://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/02/w...rn-christians/

IIRC KIng Jaja referred to this inter-communal conflict sometime ago, as the land used pastoralist Christians are attacked by Muslim herdsmen.