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Nigerian terror group Boko Haram has reportedly captured the strategically important city of Monguno following a heavy battle with the army, which has left over 200 people dead. CNN reported that the military is still fighting Boko Haram for control over Maiduguri, attempting to prevent the jihadists from gaining even more ground. "Our soldiers initially repelled the terrorists but they mobilized more fighters and came back in full force. They overwhelmed our troops and forced them to retreat," said one Nigerian officer, who asked not to be named. While Monguno has close to 100,000 residents, Maiduguri hosts more than 600,000....

It hasn't made much noise worldwide, but Iran's rapidly deteriorating relationships with several African countries is huge news across the continent. On February 16, the Nigerian Federal High Court in Lagos began the prosecution of an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Azim Aghajani, and a Nigerian associate, Usman Abbas Jega. They are accused of arms smuggling. This video link is in Arabic, but is very self-explanatory. It is of the opening day of the court proceedings.The story is a classic, just one of many on the Dark Continent nowadays: In late October 2010, Nigerian intelligence officials...

In fierce fighting Sunday that killed more than 200 combatants, Nigerian troops clashed with Islamic extremists who attacked Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeastern Nigeria, from three fronts. At the same time the insurgents continued scorched-earth attacks on villages some 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the south in Adamawa state, slitting throats of residents, looting and burning homes and abducting dozens of trapped women and children, according to Vandu Kainu and other escaping survivors. Adamawa state legislator Adamu Kamale appealed for troops to protect civilians in Michika, where six villages are under attack. “The attacks have continued since Friday with...

As thousands of Nigerians and Cameroonians fled for their lives from rampaging Boko Haram fighters, the leader of the violent Islamist group reportedly bragged in a video released Tuesday about the slaughter in the town of Baga and promised that there would be more to come. “We killed the people of Baga,” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau boasted in the video, first reported by Agence France-Presse. “We indeed killed them, as our Lord instructed us in His Book. … We will not stop. This is not much. You’ll see.” The video could not be independently authenticated. It was similar in...

I’ve never been a fan of global conferences to solve problems, but when I read that the Obama administration is organizing a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism for Feb. 18, in response to the Paris killings, I had a visceral reaction: Is there a box on my tax returns that I can check so my tax dollars won’t go to pay for this? When you don’t call things by their real name, you always get in trouble. And this administration, so fearful of being accused of Islamophobia, is refusing to make any link to radical Islam from the recent explosions...

Monday, January 19, 2015 Suppose Islam Had a Holocaust and No One Noticed Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog While Western newspapers were debating whether or not to reprint the Mohammed cartoons, in Nigeria as many as 2,000 people were massacred by the Islamic State in Nigeria, also known as Boko Haram, in what is being called the deadliest attack by the Muslim group to date. Survivors described the Islamic State setting up efficient killing teams and massacring everyone while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. "For five kilometers (three miles), I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached...

Chad will send a large number of troops to neighboring Cameroon to help it fight increasing incursions from Boko Haram Islamist militants attacking from Nigeria ... Biya has called for international military help to fight the Islamist militant group that has seized swathes of northern Nigeria and is threatening neighbors who share borders with the northeastern zones occupied by the group. Boko Haram, which aims to carve out an Islamist state in northern Nigeria, has stepped up attacks in the region as Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy, prepares for a crucial Feb. 14 presidential election. The group has also carried out...

White House press secretary Jay Carney could not offer a tangible reason to explain why it took the Obama administration two years to label Boko Haram a terrorist organization Friday on MSNBC. He cited a number of lesser measures the administration implemented to address the group’s heinous acts, but stopped short of stating what kept Boko Haram off the State Department’s terror organization list between 2011 and 2013: KRISTEN WELKER: It took two years for that to happen from 2011 to 2013. Why did it take so long? JAY CARNEY: The fact is we have been working with Nigerian government...

Satellite images released on 15 January 2015 provide indisputable and shocking evidence of the scale of last week’s attack on the towns of Baga and Doron Baga by Boko Haram militants. Before and after images of two neighbouring towns, Baga (160 kilometres from Maiduguri) and Doron Baga (also known as Doro Gowon, 2.5 km from Baga), taken on 2 and 7 January show the devastating effect of the attacks which left over 3,700 structures damaged or completely destroyed. Other nearby towns and villages were also attacked over this period. “These detailed images show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns,...

Islamist terror group Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of women and children at a school following a massive attack on the town of Baga earlier this month, according to an eyewitness. 'Boko Haram took around 300 women and kept us in a school in Baga', one unnamed woman was quoted as saying by Amnesty International in a statement. 'They released the older women, mothers and most of the children after four days but are still keeping the younger women.' Meanwhile, Nigeria's president has made a surprise visit to the heartland of the Boko Haram movement to meet survivors of the...

DEBORA PATTA CBS January 15, 2015 "It's As If The World Has Forgotten Us" JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- #BringBackOurGirls. Remember that hashtag? The social media campaign that accompanied global outrage over Boko Haram's abduction of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls on the eve of their final exams went viral almost instantly. That was nine months ago. The girls have not been seen since and it appears the world is suffering from what one commentator called "collective amnesia." But for the people of Nigeria, there is no such thing as the luxury of forgetting and moving on. Hardly a week goes...

While Western newspapers were debating whether or not to reprint the Mohammed cartoons, in Nigeria as many as 2,000 people were massacred by the Islamic State in Nigeria, also known as Boko Haram, in what is being called the deadliest attack by the Muslim group to date. Survivors described the Islamic State setting up efficient killing teams and massacring everyone while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. “For five kilometers (three miles), I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached Malam Karanti village, which was also deserted and burnt,” one survivor said. There’s a word for that. It’s genocide. The Islamic State...

There is much talk here in Nigeria of the world’s muted response to the latest outrage by the Boko Haram Islamic insurgents who sacked the entire town of Baga in the beleaguered north-east while any number of heads of state gathered in Paris to mourn the deaths of 17 French citizens. Double standards? Perhaps. But if so, what should we say about the silence of President Goodluck Jonathan in the face of the wholesale slaughter of his citizens – 2000 according to initial reports; 150 according to the government – even as his French counterpart was to be seen everywhere...

Three suicide bombings by girls aged as young as 10 suggest that Nigeria's Boko Haram has employed a new tactic of forcing abducted children to blow themselves up, according to experts. The Islamist sect has been carrying out almost daily killings and kidnappings across northeast Nigeria in a campaign of violence now in its sixth year. Deadly attacks on Saturday and Sunday were carried out by three young female suicide bombers. These came just days after a week-long killing spree by Boko Haram, in which the group torched at least 10 towns leaving around 2,000 people unaccounted for. It is...

Multiculturalism has metastasized into a shield against evil

Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist group, has pushed on after a rampage through the north of the country that killed an estimated 2,000 people, to attack an army base in neighbouring Cameroon. At least one Cameroonian soldier was killed in the cross-border attack, according to local journalists, though the Cameroonian authorities said the assault on the base in the town of Kolofata had been repulsed. The assault followed another surge over the past 10 days by the Islamist rebels known for their brutality and kidnapping of young women and girls. In a series of raids, they seized parts of Borno...

Members of the Boko Haram Muslim sect strapped bombs on three girls - aged 10 years - that detonated in two towns in northern Nigeria. At least 2 dozen innocents are dead in two days. At least five persons were killed on January 11 in a marketplace in Potiskum, a town in northern Nigeria. The victims were killed when explosive vests worn by two 10-year-old girls were detonated by Muslim terrorists associated with Boko Haram – a sect associated with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network that seeks to overthrow Nigeria’s multi-ethnic secular government and impose Islamic law. This was the second...

At the beginning of the year, Noah wrote what turned out to be a tragically prescient post about “that other Islamic State” which has been running roughshod over Christians and random civilians in Africa. Speaking of Boko Haram, Noah warned of the following: Recently, the group has adopted a troubling shift in tactics. Boko Haram has pivoted from primarily terrorizing the local population to executing coordinated, military-style raids on Nigerian outposts and using civilian suicide bombers to target populated areas.This campaign is making headway. During that same period, while the eyes of the world were turning more toward Europe...

DAKAR, Senegal — A girl perhaps no more than 10 years old detonated powerful explosives concealed under her veil at a crowded northern Nigeria market on Saturday, killing as many as 20 people and wounding many more. The blast inflicted devastating damage on shoppers at the Monday Market in Maiduguri, the shopping hub in a city that is at the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency. The explosion, witnessed by dozens of people, represented a new tactic in the Islamists’ campaign with their decision to use perhaps their youngest-ever suicide bomber. The terrorist group has increasingly employed women as suicide...

Boko Haram militants opened fire on northern Nigerian villages, leaving bodies scattered everywhere and as many as 2,000 people feared dead, officials said.