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MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian warplanes struck militant camps in the northeast on Friday in a major push against an Islamist insurgency, drawing a sharp warning from the United States to respect human rights and not harm civilians.

Mobile phone service was cut off Thursday in areas of northeast Nigeria as jet fighters streaked through the sky and more soldiers were deployed to fight Islamic extremists waging a brutal insurgency. Witnesses saw low-flying Nigerian jet fighters over Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, which President Goodluck Jonathan placed under emergency rule on Tuesday along with Borno and Yobe states. However, soldiers have met "no resistance" yet from extremists who have taken over villages and small towns in this region approaching the Sahara Desert, a military spokesman said. ... Mobile phones have become the only real communication device in...

Nigerian police have rescued 17 pregnant teens from what’s being called a baby factory in the southeastern part of the country. Imo State Police revealed they are also arrested a 23-year-old man believe to have impregnated the girls. Police also rescued 11 babies and small children from the Ahamefula Motherless Babies Home, in the community of Umuaka. BBC reports police spokeswoman Joy Elomoko saying “The girls claimed they were fed once a day and were not allowed to leave the home.” Elomoko also told AFP their babies were going to be sold to “willing buyers.” According to BBC, Nigeria’s National...

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — A fresh load of battered corpses arrived, 29 of them in a routine delivery by the Nigerian military to the hospital morgue here. Past Coverage of Boko Haram in Nigeria Unexpectedly, three bodies started moving. “They were not properly shot,” recalled a security official here. “I had to call the J.T.F.” — the military’s joint task force — “and they gunned them down.” It was a rare oversight. Large numbers of bodies, sometimes more than 60 in a day, are being brought by the Nigerian military to the state hospital, according to government, health and security officials,...

Islamist militant group Boko Haram was paid more than $3m (£2m) before releasing a French family of seven, a Nigerian government report says. The confidential report, seen by Reuters news agency, does not say who paid the money. Both France and Cameroon deny paying a ransom while Nigeria has not commented on the issue. The French family, including four children, were captured in Cameroon in February and freed last week. The were handed over to the Cameroon authorities last Thursday. The Nigerian report also says that Cameroon freed some Boko Haram detainees as part of the deal, according to Reuters....

NEW YORK, April 26, 2013 (National Right to Life News) - International Planned Parenthood (IPPF) sent a letter late yesterday to Nigerian Ambassador Joy Ogwu pressuring her to change her delegate’s pro-life stance. Ambassador Ogwu is the voice for the African Group at the 46th session of the Commission on Population and Development, which is being held this week. The letter was copied to Nigerian non-governmental organizations urging their endorsement of the letter. The letter appears to be a veiled threat that IPPF will use its considerable influence to cause the ambassador to lose her position as the First Chair...

The ongoing jihad in Nigeria by the Muslim group Boko Haram (Western Education is Sinful) is escalating as Islamic supremacism spreads across the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Muslim soldiers used locals as human shields while soldiers set residential quarters on fire. The streets of Baga were strewn with the corpses of dead humans and animals and about 2,000 private houses and several markets were burnt down in fighting, reported local officials when they returned to the town on Sunday. The jihadists found refuge in a ....... mosque. Obama sanctions this group as he has refused to designate Boko Haram...

ABUJA, April 14 — Nigeria’s main militant group, the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), on Sunday threatened to perpetrate attacks on Islamic institutions in the west African country from next month. The group, in an electronic message to journalists, said its attacks will be code-named “Operation Barbarossa”, aimed at saving Christianity in Nigeria from annihilation by the Boko Haram sect, which has been attacking churches and media and security outfits since 2009. MEND said when hostilities against Islamic institutions begin on May 31, it will target mosques, pilgrimage camps, large congregations in Islamic events and assassination of...

The Republicans, much to their own peril, continuously thrash and denigrate President Obama because they are just too dumb to appreciate that God is clearly on the man’s side. The more they try to humiliate the President, the more they rubbish themselves and their future. Like the new Pope President Obama has recorded many a first in his life as a child of Destiny. He became the first American President to receive a Nobel Peace award within his very first year in office. He became the first President to sign into Law the first affordable Health Care Reform Law that...

SNIPPET: "Harun, described as “a prototype al Qaeda operative,” was “arrested by Italian authorities on board a refugee ship and was indicted by the United States in February 2012. Italy extradited him to the United States on Oct. 4, 2012,” the Hill reported. Harun could face life in prison if convicted."

At least 20 people have been killed in a series of explosions at a bus station in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. Several buses were destroyed in the attack in the Sabon Gari district - which is home to many Christians from southern Nigeria. No group has said it was behind the blasts but Islamist militants from the Boko Haram group have attacked Kano in the past. It is the largest city in the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria. One eyewitness told the BBC that he had seen 20 bodies after Monday's blasts. Several witnesses told Reuters that one...

DAKAR, Senegal — Radical Islamists in northern Nigeria have killed seven foreign construction workers who were kidnapped in February, a significant escalation of extremist violence in Nigeria’s continuing jihadist insurgency. The killings were announced Saturday by an obscure splinter group, Ansaru, and confirmed by European foreign ministries on Sunday. The seven — an Italian, a Greek, an Englishman and four from the Middle East, including Lebanon — were seized on Feb. 16 from the compound of Setraco, a Lebanese construction company operating in Nigeria’s Bauchi State, in a well-planned nighttime assault. A grainy photo released by the group showed a...

(CNN) -- Britain, Italy and Greece on Sunday confirmed that hostages from their countries were among seven construction workers reported killed in Nigeria over the weekend. "This was an act of cold-blooded murder, which I condemn in the strongest terms," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement announcing that a British construction worker was among the dead. Nigerian militant group Ansar al-Muslimeen claimed responsibility for the February kidnappings of the seven construction workers from an office in northeastern Nigeria. The group, widely known as Ansaru, released images of some of the bodies Saturday.

I realize this is a dangerous article:  recommending three cardinals who might be the best selections to replace Pope Benedict XVI. It's called throwing the dice in some circles. Really, how can anyone know who the cardinals will elect? And even then, do any of us know enough about all of them to make a good judgment on who the Holy Spirit might choose for that heavy cross -- err, role? But still, I’d like to have a go at it just to know I tried, and if one of these are indeed picked, it would be rather exciting. These...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran denied on Friday Nigerian allegations that it had trained militants arrested in Nigeria on charges of planning attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets there. Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said such allegations were "made up as the result of the ill will of the enemies of the two countries' good relations", Iranian state television reported. "Iran and Nigeria have friendly and close relations and despite the vast efforts of the two countries' enemies in recent years relations and cooperations have always improved," he said. Nigeria's secret service said on Thursday it had arrested Abdullahi Mustapha Berende...

The condition of Nigerian troops in Mali is quickly sliding from bad to worse as inadequate supply of provision is forcing the contingent to solicit food from locals, PREMIUM TIMES can exclusively report. According to a reliable defence source who asked not to be named, the Nigerian contingent solicits food and handouts under the guise of "courtesy calls" to community leaders in Mali. After one of such courtesy calls on Monday, the troops received a handout of a cow and 50 bags of rice from the Prefect of Tuban in Banamba region. "Our officers and men have resorted to begging...

Police in northern Nigeria have arrested three journalists in connection with the killing of nine polio vaccine workers at a clinic last week. The journalists from radio station Wazobia FM are accused of inciting the killings by hosting an on-air discussion about rumors and conspiracy theories related to the vaccines. ... The female workers were killed by gunmen on motorbikes Friday, while giving out polio vaccines at two community health centers in Kano city. ... Some Nigerians in the country's largely Muslim north believe the polio vaccines are used to sterilize young girls or can cause HIV.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Landing in Nigeria's largest city, one of the first thing visitors see as they peer out of their airplane's windows is the moss-covered metal carcasses of what used to fly in Africa's most populous nation. Workers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos call it "the graveyard," an overgrown field filled with about a dozen cargo and passenger airplanes long since abandoned and left to rot by insolvent airlines. At least 65 abandoned airplanes, ranging from small commuter jets to one massive Boeing 747, sit at airfields across the country and serve as a haunting reminder...

This is a brutal example of how far the struggle between muslims and catholics in Nigeria has reached. Muslims are determined to impose their 'religion' all over Africa as well as in other continents and countries of the world. Islam has but one goal: rule the world at any cost." "And where are the International Human Rights Organizations? Christians are burnt alive in Nigeria: a horrific Holocaust right in front of International indifference. As denounced by Father Juan Carlos Martos, on behalf of the Missionari Clarettiani, via del Sacro Cuore di Maria, Rome, Italy." "By publishing this graphic document on...

Two Nigerian soldiers were killed and five others seriously injured in a 19 January attack on a military detachment heading for deployment in Mali, as part of Nigeria's contribution to UN-sanctioned African intervention force to reclaim northern Mali from Islamists, military officials told IRIN. The soldiers from a military unit based in the southern Nigerian city of Ibadan, were on their way to the town of Kachia in northern Kaduna state to prepare for deployment to Mali, when they were attacked near the city of Okene in central Kogi state, Nigerian army spokesman Major General Bola Koleoso told IRIN. "We...

Nigeria has revealed the presence in the country of terrorists trained in Mali, the northern part of which is in the hands of armed Islamist groups who seized it last year. The influx of the terrorists may have heightened the activities of the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram, which has been more active lately. The sect has killed over 3,000 people in gun and bomb attacks in northern Nigeria since 2009. Nigeria has started the deployment of over a battalion of troops to Mali to participate in the African-led International Support Mission for Mali (AFISMA), which is battling alongside Malian...

Islamist rebels chased Mali's army from a garrison town deep in its own territory on Monday, striking back at the weakest link in a nascent coalition after French fighter jets hit militant bases deep in the Sahara. The surprise move by what witnesses called a well-armed rebel force highlights the risk that the French campaign in Mali could widen as al Qaeda militants spread across the heart of the world's largest desert. The advancing fighters took control of the small barracks town of Diabaly after attacking and defeating the Malian army there, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. The...

Ex-NBA star educates police on Islam HOUSTON (AP)— Houston police learned a lesson about Islam from former Houston Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon as part of a program to educate officers about the city's diverse communities. Olajuwon spoke to officers Wednesday at the Hakeem Islamic Dawah Center, a mosque and Islamic education center built with money provided by the NBA star. Organizers of the Houston Police Department's program said they wanted someone who could put a face on Islam to dispel cultural stereotypes. "This type of program is so important in today's world, where Islam has been so misunderstood by so...

Gen. Carter Ham is head of the U.S. African command. An Army brigade from Fort Riley, Kan., will begin helping train African militaries beat back a growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida. An Army brigade from Fort Riley, Kan., some 4,000, soldiers, will begin helping to train African militaries. The idea is to help African troops beat back a growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida. The American troops will head over in small teams over the course of the next year. The Dagger Brigade returned to Kansas last year from a deployment to Iraq, where it trained and advised that...

A militant Islamist leader whose forces have just conquered two-thirds of the West African state of Mali vows to launch holy war against the West. Omar Ould Hamaha, the military commander of Ansar Dine, or "Defenders of the Faith", which has scored a stunning victory in Mali against the failed state's armed forces, now controls a region larger than France which includes three paved runways that could be used to fly in weapons or drugs. He said: "Even if they (western forces) don't come here, when we have finished conquering France, we will come to the USA, we will come...

WASHINGTON: The famous African explorer Dr David Livingstone might have been impressed, even if the agenda was suspect. Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear proliferator-hero Abdul Qadeer Khan traversed the breadth of Africa in his hey day as a nuclear salesman , going to as romantic a getaway as Casablanca in Morocco and as remote an outpost as Timbuktu in Mali.   US officials might dearly like to get hold of Khan’s travel agent, or simply his itinerary, since he seems to have pretty much charted his own course during his profligate proliferating days. According to accounts now surfacing in the Pakistani media,...

The London accountant who accompanied Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to Timbuktu on three occasions in 1998, 1999 and 2000 says the 'father' of the Pakistani bomb witnessed the digging of a well, toured an ancient Islamic library and enjoyed the views of the desert. A remote outpost in the middle of the West African desert, Timbuktu usually attracts explorers associated in the popular mind with the adventures of the comic character Tin Tin. And Pakistani dissidents told rediff.com the reason for Khan's visit to Timbuktu, part of landlocked West African state of Mali, was to prospect for uranium. They say...

Boko Haram has claimed to be fighting for the creation of an Islamic state in Nigeria, though its demands have repeatedly shifted and it is believed to include a number of factions with varying aimsSuspected Islamist extremists have killed 15 Christians by slitting their throats in an attack on a village in Nigeria’s volatile northeast, residents and a relief source said Sunday. The gruesome violence was the latest to be blamed on Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, though this Christmas season has been notably less bloody than in 2011, when attacks on churches and other locations left scores dead. “From...

President François Hollande said on Thursday that Islamist groups holding French hostages in Africa were not trustworthy and should not be taken seriously after Al-Qaeda accused Paris of blocking negotiations for their release. There are a total of nine French hostages on the continent. On Tuesday the Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said France was snubbing talks proposed by the group to free four French citizens abducted in Niger in September 2010. "The less one speaks, the better one can work," Hollande told journalists during a visit to Rungis, a giant wholesale food market just outside Paris. "There have been...

From Chicago to Rio, from Jamaica to Nigeria, gang violence is leaving an indelible mark on communities across the globe, leaving authorities at a loss for what to do about the epidemic of lawlessness among young men who see little hope in their futures. Certainly the global economic crisis has much to do with the rise in gang violence and influence, as young men of color in most of the affected countries see few options for gainful employment. In Chicago, among 400 murders that have occurred in 2012, an estimated 80 percent of them have been gang-related. The killing in...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Alabama Men Arrested on Terrorism Charges U.S. Attorney’s Office December 11, 2012 Southern District of Alabama MOBILE, AL—U.S. Attorney Kenyen R. Brown of the Southern District of Alabama and Stephen E. Richardson, Special Agent in Charge of the Mobile Division of the FBI, announced that Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, 25, and Randy Wilson, also known as Rasheed Wilson, 25, both U.S. citizens living in Mobile, were arrested today on terrorism charges filed in the Southern District of Alabama. A criminal complaint signed on December 10, 2012, charges Abukhdair and Wilson with conspiring to...

Boko Haram’s violent jihad against Christians in Nigeria pushed the West African country into seventh place in annual rankings of countries impacted by terrorism, lending weight to calls for the State Department to reconsider its decision not to designate the group as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Nigeria’s ranking in the latest Global Terrorism Index, released this week, marked a shift from 12th place a year earlier, from 16th place in 2008, and from 30th place in 2005. The top six countries this year are Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Yemen and Somalia. … Most recently, ten Christians were reported to have...

The Nigerian based Boko Haram Islamist group is responsible for over 900 deaths. Members of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the 2011 Christmas day bomb blasts in Madalla, Niger State and Jos, the plateau state capital, that left 28 people dead... Now there is a report that a British Islamic charity is funding Boko Haram... The UK authorities are looking into an alleged possible link between a British charity organization and the Nigerian Boko Haram extremist Islamist group. The UK Charity Commission (CC) has confirmed, for the first time, that it is talking to different departments, regarding...

Obama say, "respect it!" And how depraved is President Obama and in the tank for jihad? He refuses to designate Boko Haram a terror organization. Boko Haram means "books bad," or Western education is sinful. "Nigerian Muslim group slaughters 20 young women" Digital Journal (thanks to Armaros via Blazing Cat Fur) Maiduguri - Friday, about a day after 10 men were killed in Maiduguri, at least 20 women, some clad in mini-skirts and others in slacks, were slaughtered in their Maiduguri homes and college dormitories. While members of the Boko Haram terrorist organization are suspected of committing the heinous terrorist...

Nigeria's military has killed a top commander of militant Islamist group Boko Haram in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, an army spokesman has said. Ibn Saleh Ibrahim was killed in an exchange of fire with six of his lieutenants, the spokesman added. An unknown number of civilians are said to have been killed in the crossfire, says a BBC reporter in Nigeria. Boko Haram, which has killed hundreds of people since 2009, has not commented on Mr Ibrahim's reported death. The group's founding leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed by security forces in July 2009. 'War hero' Boko Haram is now...

After meeting with the Nigerian Ambassador to the U.S. this week, the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans (CANAN) is calling on the international community to pressure governments and those in authority to have Boko Haram declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) – as the militants have been blamed for hundreds of civilian deaths since it started waging Jihad in 2009. ...The U.S. State Department in June announced that some of Boko Haram's leaders and affiliates have been classified as "Specially Designated Global Terrorists", with two individuals said to have ties to al Qaida. On Thursday, Ambassador Adefuye expressed solidarity with the...

The Islamist militant group Boko Haram has conducted terrorist attacks in Nigeria that bring it closer to al Qaeda in northern Mali, making linkages between the groups more likely and more dangerous, according to a paper published by the Combating Terrorism Center. In the past year, Boko Haram has carried out several large-scale attacks across a 900-mile swath of Nigeria, roughly the distance between New York City and Atlanta, the paper states. That puts the Nigerian extremists just 300 miles from northern Mali, which is controlled by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other affiliated groups. Boko Haram,...

The persecution of the Igbos didn't end with the Biafran conflict. Until the nation faces up to this, its mediocrity will continue Almost 30 years before Rwanda, before Darfur, more than 2 million people – mothers, children, babies, civilians – lost their lives as a result of the blatantly callous and unnecessary policies enacted by the leaders of the federal government of Nigeria.As a writer I believe that it is fundamentally important, indeed essential to our humanity, to ask the hard questions, in order to better understand ourselves and our neighbours. Where there is justification for further investigation, justice should...

Gunmen opened fire on Muslim worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least 20 people, a local official said. The attack happened in a remote village called Dogo Dawa, in Kaduna state, said Abdullahi Muhammad, the traditional ruler and councillor of Birnin Gwari, a local government area next door to the village. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Like much of northern Nigeria, Kaduna is plagued by an insurgency led by radical Islamist sect Boko Haram. They usually attack security forces, government officials or Christians, but have hit Muslim...

Adamawa state, like much of northern Nigeria, has been targeted by Islamist insurgents, but police were also investigating whether the killings might have been motivated by a political feud inside the college.

Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. The soldiers' mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage. But the teams had yet to do much counterterrorism work in Libya, though the White House signed off a year ago on the plan to build the new military task force in the region and the advance teams had been there for six months, according to three U.S. counterterror officials and a former...

The BBC buried the lede. The BBC's last sentence should be the lede: "fighting to establish Islamic law in Nigeria and has killed more than 1,000 people in numerous attacks across northern and central areas this year." Boko Haram (Arabic translation "books bad" or "Western education is haram") is the devout Muslim group on a jihad to impose the shari'a in Nigeria. Nigerian gunmen kill Mubi students BBC At least 20 people, mostly students, have been killed by unknown gunmen in Mubi, north-eastern Nigeria, officials say. Most of the dead are said to have attended the Federal Polytechnic Mubi. A...

Brief thoughts/quotes from the last 11 years. "Looking away, not caring, or hoping for the best are not viable options in fighting terrorism (in general) and the global jihad (specifically). Terrorism must be fought head on 24/7 and preventing terrorism is far better than just reacting to one terror-related event after another." -Cindy (July 1, 2011) ~ "WHAT DID I LEARN from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001? OPINION: I have learned that more Americans love America than the lame-stream media will ever let on. I have learned that America's military is the finest in the world. I have...

Nigeria has suspended all Hajj flights to Saudi Arabia after the authorities there deported more than 170 women who had arrived without a male escort. About 1,000 Nigerian women intending to make the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca have been detained since Sunday.

Abuja - At least 35 suspected members of a radical Islamist sect were killed and 156 others arrested by Nigerian military in a campaign in a northern state on Monday. The Joint Task Force has killed 35 Boko Haram terrorists, including a key commander, in shoot-outs and arrested 156 others, an army spokesperson said. Four of those killed were believed to be involved in the recent attack on the country's subsidiary of Airtel and other mobile telephone companies like MTN and Globacom. "The kingpin was shot in a fire fight with soldiers while resisting arrest," Brigade General John Nwoaga told...

The two people who died yesterday in Bauchi, Nigeria at the hands of an Islamist suicide bomber did not burn the Koran. The 48 injured in the attack weren’t extras in some amateur video insulting the Prophet Muhammed. No, their crime was that they were Christians, which, in the eyes of the suicide bomber, a member of the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram, was punishable by death or injury. Indeed, in no other country do Christ followers face greater danger than Nigeria, where Boko Haram – which translates as “Western education is sacrilege” – has publicly declared its intent to...

Explosion Rocks Church In Bauchi During Morning Mass! By NewsAdmin on September 23, 2012A bomb explosion hit the St. John’s Catholic Church, around the Bayan Gari area of Bauchi(*) on Sunday morning as a suicide bomber detonated a bomb while the church was holding a morning mass. The intensity of the explosion was reportedly high as people in the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Hospital claimed to have heard it loudly. Police sources said only the suicide bomber died while about 46 people were injured. Red Cross sources disclosed that three people died while about 50 were injured. Security operatives have...

A suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church conducting Mass in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing two people and wounding another 45 in a region under assault by a radical Islamist sect, officials said. The attack took place in the city of Bauchi, which has seen a number of bombings and shootings blamed on the sect known as Boko Haram. The blast appeared to hit a parking lot alongside the St. John's Catholic Church in the city. Police and military surrounded the church and did not allow journalists inside the cordon. Later at a nearby hospital, Bauchi deputy police commissioner...

Is this ever going to stop? I’m beginning to think, no. (Ahram Online) — Tens of thousands of people on Saturday protested in Nigeria’s second city of Kano, burning images of Barack Obama and stomping on the American flag to denounce an anti-Islam film made in the US.A crowd that included men, children and veiled women stretched for several kilometres (miles) through the city, the largest in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, condemning the film that has stirred outrage across the Muslim world.They shouted “death to America, death to Israel and death to the enemies of Islam,� in a rally that...

NEWARK, N.J. - An illegal immigrant from Nigeria admitted Friday he assumed the identity of a murdered man so he could work at Newark's airport, where he was a security supervisor for 20 years. He now faces possible deportation. Bimbo Oyewole, 54, pleaded guilty in state court to using a fake security badge under a plea deal in which prosecutors agreed to recommend he receive probation. He had been charged with identity theft when he was arrested in May. He will be jailed pending sentencing Oct. 19. The state attorney general's office, which prosecuted the case, said Oyewole faces potential...