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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...

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...

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...

Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International described as the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram. . . District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents. An Amnesty International statement said there are reports the town was razed and as many as 2,000 people killed.

A bomb strapped to a girl aged around 10 years old exploded in a busy market place in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Saturday, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 20, security sources said. "The explosive devices were wrapped around her body and the girl looked no more than 10 years old," a police source said. Maiduguri, the capital of northern Borno state, lies in the heartland of an insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, and is often hit by bomb attacks