The Nigerian security forces in central Niger, the center of the country, have established Monday strict protection measures to prevent possible terrorist attacks during Christmas celebrations, reported the Army today.

A senior military commander of the Artillery Brigade 31, Commander Moshood Jimoh, said that specialised personnel was deployed in areas identified as key points where insurgent groups operate to protect roads from assaults and other terrorist actions.

The official recalled that during the 2010 and 2011 Christmas celebrations in the city of Jos, Plateau state capital, were perpetrated deadly attacks by extremist groups against cult centres and other religious sites.

Niger is one of 36 states in Nigeria, which in recent years suffered a series of attacks, including the bombing of Christmas Day in the Catholic Church of Santa Teresa, in the city of Madalla, near this Capital, in which more than 30 people were killed in 2011.

The action was led by a member of the fundamentalist sect Boko Haram, the main group involved in violent attacks since the insurgency began in 2009 and also blamed for the displacement of more than two million people in northeastern Nigeria.

International agencies responsible for humanitarian assistance blame extremist formation for the current conflict extended to the rest of the countries of the Lake Chad basin, which also include Cameroon and Niger.

 

 

 

bernama.com

Witnesses said they believed at least 17 people had died in the double suicide blast in Maidugari, the capital of the northeastern state of Borno.

The two blasts occured in quick succession at about 8.48am in a crowded area near the city’s main market.

The area is often targeted by Islamist militants loyal to Boko Haram, the terror group which has pledged its allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS).

The terror attack comes a day after dozens of people died in Nigeria’s southeastern city of Uyo when a church collapsed on worshippers celebrating a pastor being ordained.

Earlier this morning at least 22 people were killed after a church was blown up in Cairo, Egypt.

Late last night a car bomb and a suicide bomber killed 38 people – mainly police – in Istanbul outside the Turkish capital’s famous Vodafone Arena football stadium.

Turkey is blaming Kurdish terrorist group PKK.

The British Foreign Office advises travellers to avoid going to Nigeria’s northeast and says all but essential travel should be avoided to much of the rest of the country.

 

 

 

 

express.co.uk/

Two separate bomb blasts at a market in the Madagali area of Adamawa State killed over 56 persons while also leaving at least 177 others critically injured.

The Army Public Relations Officer in charge of 28 Task Force Battalion, Mubi, Adamawa, Major Badare Akintoye, confirmed the incident.

Chairman of Madagali Council, Yusuf Mohammed, while also acknowledging the tragedy, said the blast occurred in the early hours of Friday.

According to him, the attack also destroyed food items worth several millions of naira aside from the lives lost.

Badare while explaining how the incident happened, said, “The attack was carried out by two female school children, they detonated two bombs at the same time killing the victims while they also died in the process. We have reinforced security in the area to avoid enemies coming in to cause further mayhem.”

Police Public Relations Officer in Adamawa State, Othman Abubakar, said they were on top of the situation as their men were deployed to secure the area.

The Director, Defence Information, Brig.-Gen. Rabe Abubakar, told one of our correspondents that the attack was caused by desperation of the Boko Haram insurgents. He said the group had become weak and had decided to use “sleeper cell” to carry out attacks on citizens.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday condoled the families of victims of the tragedy.

In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the President also condoled  with the government and people of the state over the unfortunate incident.

 

 

 

 

punchng.com

A Kenyan army spokesman says soldiers on patrol have killed four extremists suspected of being members of the al-Qaida-linked Somali group al-Shabab.

Lt. Col. Paul Njuguna says other extremists escaped Friday’s firefight in the Hulugho area of eastern Kenya.

Al-Shabab has vowed retribution after Kenya sent troops to Somalia to fight the group in late 2011.

Al-Shabab has carried out more than 100 attacks in Kenya since 2011, including the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in which 67 people died and the 2015 attack on Garissa University in which 148 people, mostly students, died.

Kenyan security agencies have managed to stop the frequency of the attacks except in some border regions but have been accused of human rights abuses.

 

 

 

 

ap.org

Two explosions ripped through a bustling market in northeast Nigeria’s Madagali town Friday morning, and a survivor says they killed at least 10 people.

Boko Haram fighters are blamed for the attack on the edge of the Islamic extremist group’s Sambisa Forest stronghold, which Nigeria’s military has been bombing ahead of ground assaults. Since the military has dislodged the extremists from towns and villages this year, the insurgents have been attacking soft targets.

Madagali was liberated last year after months in the hands of Boko Haram. It is 150 kilometers (95 miles) southeast of the biggest northeastern city, Maiduguri.

Friday’s blasts struck simultaneously at opposite ends of the market selling grains and vegetables, according to Ahmadu Gulak, a driver who was buying tea there. He told The Associated Press he counted at least 10 bodies and dozens of wounded being ferried to a nearby hospital.

Police spokesman Othman Abubakar confirmed the blasts but said rescuers were still working and it was too early to give a toll. He said it was unclear if the attacks came from suicide bombers or planted explosives.

A bus station near the same market was targeted by two women suicide bombers who killed at least 30 people in December 2015. In June, Boko Haram extremists opened fire on mourners at a funeral in Madagali, killing 18 people.

The attacks continue despite government and military assertions that the insurgents are on the run. President Muhammadu Buhari had declared the extremist group was “technically defeated” in December 2015. Last week, a year later, he said a multinational force from Nigeria and neighboring states is readying to “move simultaneously and spontaneously for us to see the end of Boko Haram.”

Buhari said the insurgents “are done for” in the Lake Chad Basin bordering Nigeria, Chad and Niger. But the United Nations says more than 1 million people are believed trapped there by ongoing fighting without food or medical help.

Boko Haram’s seven-year uprising has killed more than 20,000 people, forced 2.6 million from their homes and created a massive humanitarian crisis.

 

 

 

 

ap.org

“Yesterday I had just one cup of millet [grain] left. There are 12 people in our house. We went to bed last night not knowing what we’ll eat today. I got down on my knees and prayed to God to help me. I went to sleep thinking that this very morning I’d have to start knocking on doors for help. But in the morning there was a knock on my door instead. It was the pastor, who told me you had come here with some food and that I had to come to church to receive it.

“I thought it would be something I could easily carry. But look here, it’s a bag of rice, a bag of millet, sugar, oil, fish and soap… Eh, when my wife sees me entering the house with soap, I tell you she will not believe it. Look at me! All this food! I am a king! I tell you, it feels as if God loves me and me alone!”

This was the gratitude Mamadou, 46, expressed to Amora*, a worker with the global charity Open Doors, during a recent relief aid distribution visit to internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Cameroon.

Before the Boko Haram insurgency spread into the region, Mamadou, his wife and their seven children lived happily in Achigachia, a town on the border with Nigeria. The family owned a comfortable three-roomed house and Mamadou was able to buy a motorcycle.

But his bike attracted the attention of Boko Haram, and one day when he got home, three of the group’s members confronted him and demanded that he hand it over. When he refused, they made it clear they were serious.

“Give us the keys, or we will kill you,” they said.

Mamadou fled over the fence as they fired shots at him. He escaped, but fled into the hills by himself, where he was forced to remain for a few weeks.

Meanwhile, the militants continued to harass his family.

“They returned three more times to look for me and to loot my house. They told my wife if I did not come back, they would take her and the children away,” he recalled.

Mamadou and his family fled, joining thousands of other IDPs in the towns of northern Cameroon, where they felt they were less likely to suffer attacks and be forced to flee again. Although a fellow Christian gave him a house to stay in, life has not been easy.

In 2014, he and his wife lost one of their daughters, Batou, after she became ill due to the stress of their displacement. She was only 12; they had no money to get her proper medical care.

They also heard that the insurgents razed their house in Achigachia.

“They burnt down everything. My children’s birth certificates, the house. All went up in flames,” Mamadou said.

Charity worker Amora said: “Christians in Cameroon’s Far North Region are going through untold pain and misery that has been caused by the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency in the country. The effects are mainly felt in three of the Far North Region’s subdivisions near the border with north-eastern Nigeria. When the IDPs fled their homes, they left with nothing. This assistance really helps the Church care for these scores of IDPs.”

The Far North of Cameroon not only borders Nigeria, where Boko Haram originated; it also contains the Mayo-Tsanaga Province, where the Association of Evangelical Churches in Cameroon (UEEC) had been carrying out pioneering work.

Boko Haram started carrying out attacks in Cameroon’s Far North in 2013, including kidnapping a French family of seven, the Moulin-Fourniers, as they returned from a holiday in Waza National Park.

The violence worsened after President Paul Biya vowed in May 2014 to “declare war” on the group. In response, the jihadists launched an offensive against army positions and several other locations, causing great damage to local populations, especially the churches. In 2015, the group embarked on suicide attacks – half of which were performed by children – that claimed the lives of many civilians and injured scores more.

According to the UNHCR, the Boko Haram insurgency has caused nearly 170,000 people in the Far North Region to flee their homes, while the area has received at least 73,000 Nigerian refugees escaping the jihadists’ attacks at home. A great number of the displaced are Christians.

The insurgency has taken a heavy toll on local churches. In November 2013, a French Catholic priest, Georges Vandenbeusch, was kidnapped from the town of Nguetchewe and held hostage for seven weeks. Sacred objects, plus equipment belonging to the mission station, were desecrated and vandalised. In March 2014, four nuns were abducted from the Catholic parish of Tchere, in the Diamare region.

According to data compiled by World Watch Monitor, 68 Christians, including a pastor, have been killed since 2013. Pastor Jean Marcel Kesvere of the Lutheran Brethren Church of Cameroon was kidnapped on 25 July 2013. His family found out later he’d been killed. In total, some 40 churches have been sacked, burnt down and left unusable, while two health centres and a school have closed.

“All villages, especially those with a strong Christian presence, on the Cameroon-Nigeria border, which runs from Lake Chad to the Adamaoua plateaus, are affected,” said Rev. Samuel Heteck, President of the Protestant Churches’ Council in Northern Cameroon. “This is a blow to the churches that find themselves emptied of their members. It is difficult to put into words the disaster caused by the Boko Haram insurgency.”

Nearly half of the churches affected are in the Mayo-Tsanaga Province (see below).

The food distributions by various charities have not been enough to reach every displaced family. Some of the IDPs in the subdivision have rented homes in their host communities, or built huts. Some are involved in farming (for themselves and for others) and others do basic trading. But, for many, making a living is very hard and they are facing desperate circumstances.

Mamadou says he is deeply appreciate of the aid and its timing.

“My wife has just given birth to a boy,” he told Amora. “Had it been a girl, I would have given her your name! I really thank you. May God bless you! You can’t even imagine what this means. We know that our difficulties are far from over, but we know where there is life there is hope. God will see us through one day at a time.”

Boko Haram destruction in northern Cameroon

Mokolo, Mayo-Tsanaga Province : 23 churches and health centres affected :

Tourou Zone: 5 churches ransacked or closed

Moskota Zone: 18 churches and mission stations burnt down or closed

Mora, Mayo-Sava Province: 14 churches or Christian ministries destroyed

Malika Zone: 3 churches ransacked and burnt down

Kolofata Zone: 10 churches and 1 health centre affected

Kousséri, Logone and Chari Province: 5 churches ransacked or burnt down

 

 

 

worldwatchmonitor.org

A total of 800 hostages in Boko Haram’s custody have been freed in a military operation by Nigerian troop in the restive northeast state of Borno, the Army said Thursday.

Lucky Irabor, Theater Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, told a news conference in Maiduguri, the state capital, that they were rescued in its ongoing anti-terrorism operations.

He said that the persons had been rescued since Nov. 23.

Irabor said the military had also arrested a number of terrorists fleeing their Sambisa forest hideout due to the ongoing operation.

The arrested have been handed over to the Nigeria Police, he added.

On Sunday, the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, called on troops serving in the northeast to immediately embark on the final aggressive action and comprehensive sweep of the operational theater to end the operation against the Boko Haram insurgents.

Nigeria’s northeast region has been a stronghold of the extremist group Boko Haram. Over the past months, the Nigerian government has launched several military operations to eliminate the terror group.

 

 

 

 

 

xinhuanet.com

Soldiers from the Netherlands’ 11 Luchtmobiele Brigade (11th Airmobile Brigade) will join the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) to staff a new Long Range Reconnaissance Task Group (LRRTG).

Dutch Ministry of Defence spokesman Colonel Jos van der Leij told IHS Jane’s that a detachment from the 11 Luchtmobiele Brigade will arrive in Mali by 1 January 2017, where they will be based at Camp Castor, in Gao, which is also home to the German Intelligence, Surveillance and Intelligence (ISR) Task Force.

He added that the new LRRTG will replace the existing Special Operations Land Task Group (SOLTG), which was first stood up in 2014 and has since been staffed by Dutch Korps Commando Troepen (KCT) and Maritime Special Operation Forces (MARSOF) operatives as well as, since early 2016, Danish and Czech special forces.

The SOLTG is a long-range reconnaissance unit under the direct authority of the MINUSMA Force Commander and tasked with intelligence gathering. It has no mandate to carry out offensive counter-terrorism operations.

Col van der Leij explained that, unlike the SOLTG, the LRRTG will be staffed only by Dutch personnel and that its mission will remain essentially the same as that of the SOLTG and will also answer directly to the Force Commander.

While talks as to the future of the Netherlands’ contribution to MINUSMA are expected to take place in The Hague over the coming weeks, it is already acknowledged that Dutch forces will remain in Mali at least until the end of 2017.

 

 

 

janes.com

 

 

 

rfi.fr

Islamist militants attacked a prison in the town of Niono in central Mali overnight and freed all the prisoners, officials said on Tuesday.

Militants based in northern Mali have staged a series of high-profile attacks since 2015, extending their campaign beyond their desert camps into the central and southern regions of the country and the capital.

“Dozens of prisoners escaped. The army was able to catch some and is launching a pursuit,” said Defence Ministry spokesman Abdoulaye Sidibe.

Army spokesman Diarran Kone said the attack bore the hallmarks of followers of radical Islamist preacher Amadou Koufa. It was unclear whether there were any suspected jihadists in the prison.

Last month, gunmen broke into another prison in southern Mali with the aim of releasing two inmates who had already been moved, authorities said.

Islamist groups hijacked a separatist Tuareg rebellion in 2012 to seize towns in Mali’s vast desert north. French forces drove them back a year later, but they have since reorganized, and in recent months launched dozens of attacks.

theglobeandmail.com