Boko Haram set for battle
Terrorists massing for showdown as forces march against Nigerian group
Boko Haram fighters are massing at their headquarters in the northeast Nigerian town of Gwoza in preparation for a showdown with multinational forces, residents and an intelligence officer said.
A woman trapped there since Gwoza was seized in July told her daughter that Islamic extremists are urging civilians to leave town to avoid being killed in crossfire in an anticipated major battle.
Hajiya Adama said her mother said the fighters also have released young women being held against their will, including some made pregnant during their captivity.
She said her mother left last week and escaped to Yola, in neighbouring Adamawa state.
“She told me that Boko Haram terrorists asked them to leave suddenly, that they were preparing grounds for a major battle,” Adama said.
An intelligence officer said security forces are moving slowly for fear of harming civilians, and especially since Boko Haram is surrounding Gwoza with landmines.
The officer said forces from Chad are in the area.
Retaking Gwoza would be a major coup for Nigeria and for the campaign of President Goodluck Jonathan for re-election at critical March 28 ballots. Critics say the contest is too close to call between Jonathan, a southern Christian, and retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator who has vowed to stamp out the six-year-old insurgency that has killed an estimated 12,000 people and left 1.6 million homeless.
Boko Haram declared an Islamic caliphate across a swath of northeast Nigeria where it held sway in August. Troops from neighbouring countries, including Chad and Niger, have been drawn into the fight against the group. In recent weeks, Chadian and Nigerian troops have retaken a score of towns, but the militants continue to kill scores in suicide bombings and village attacks.At least 56 people were killed in northeastern Nigeria in two separate attacks by the militants, according to residents and a local vigilante group.
Militants killed 47 people when they attacked Djaba village, near Damboa town, on March 3, Usman Mohammed, a member of the vigilante group, said Friday. Another set of fighters besieged Shani for two days from March 4, killing nine people, said Hassan Ibrahim, a resident. Shani is 240 kilometres south of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.
Nearly six years into its insurgency in Nigeria, the Islamic extremist group is now attacking villages in the other countries bordering Lake Chad — Chad, Niger and Cameroon — and local officials say the motive is greed, not a drive to establish an Islamic caliphate.
About 3,400 Nigerian refugees had been living in N’gouboua, Chad, at the time of a Feb. 13 attack and all have since been relocated further inland to a camp jointly run by the UN and the government of Chad, a predominantly Muslim country. Journalists who visited N’gouboua on Thursday saw traumatized and scared residents and nearly a dozen destroyed vehicles and motorcycles in the streets.
The extremists had also set the town’s sole mosque ablaze.
“What kind of Muslim sets a mosque on fire?” asked Adam Dogo, a resident. “The Boko Haram are against Islam.”
“Our wives are afraid to sleep at night,” said Abakar Adoum, whose older brother was killed in the attack. “I never thought Boko Haram would come here, and now we are afraid that they will come back. They must be eliminated.”