IS group guns down 97 praying Nigerians
Attacks follow directive to attack during Ramadan
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Boko Haram extremists gunned down nearly 100 Muslims praying in mosques in a northeast Nigerian town during the holy month of Ramadan, a government official and a selfdefense fighter said Thursday.
The attack Wednesday night on the town of Kukawa came the day after the Islamic extremist group attacked a village 22 miles away and killed another 48 men and boys, according to witnesses who counted the dead.
The people of Kukawa were in several mosques, praying ahead of breaking their daylong fast, when the extremists attacked. They killed 97 people, mainly men, said self-defense spokesman Abbas Gava and a senior government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give information to reporters.
Mr. Gava said his group’s fighters in Kukawa said some militants also broke into people’s homes, killing women and children as they prepared the evening meal.
Kukawa is 110 miles northeast of Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeast Nigeria and the birthplace of Boko Haram.
Nigeria’s homegrown extremist group often defiles mosques where it believes that clerics espouse too moderate a form of Islam. Wednesday’s attack follows a directive from the Islamic State group for fighters to increase attacks during Ramadan. Boko Haram this year became the IS group’s West African franchise.
On Tuesday night, the extremists invaded the village of Mussaram, ordered men and women to separate and then opened fire on the men and boys, witnesses said. “A total of 48 males died on the spot, while 17 others escaped with serious injuries,” said Maidugu Bida, a self-defense official based in nearby Monguno who helped bury the dead.
On Monday, two suicide bombers blew themselves up prematurely in a village outside Maiduguri just an hour before the arrival of Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo. He visited some of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the 5year-old Islamic uprising that has killed more than 13,000 people and driven 1.5 million from their homes.
At the end of last year, Boko Haram controlled an area roughly the size of Belgium, but the group lost huge chunks of territory when the military went on the offensive in the months before of a presidential election in March. By then, the military said it had taken back all but three of 20 local government areas previously controlled by the Islamist militants. But the last month has seen a resurgence in attacks, many in Maiduguri.
New President Muhammadu Buhari, after coming to power, moved the army's command center for the campaign against Boko Haram to the Borno state capital after coming to power. Tuesday’s attacks were on Borno state villages.
Mr. Buhari, who was inaugurated May 29, has held talks with officials from neighboring countries Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin to set up a regional force to tackle the insurgents. The fight against Boko Haram is also expected to be high on the agenda when Mr. Buhari travels to Washington on July 20 to meet President Barack Obama.