Nigerian terror group Boko Haram has set up an FM radio station to boost recruitment and propaganda against the Nigerian government, a counter-terrorism expert has told IBTimes UK. It is believed the radio station was set up along the border with northern Cameroon earlier in June.

Residents in Tolkomari confirmed on 15 June they started receiving broadcast messages from the Islamist outfit via the radio station on 96.8 FM, the Daily Trust reported. It is believed the radio station will be used to counter reports on the successes of a regional offensive currently in place against the group.

Boko Haram, whose insurgency became violent in 2009, used to release statements and videos with frequency. However, the group has become more quiet since a multi-national task force took over the fight against the terrorists in 2015, amid suspicions its leader, Abubakar Shekau, might have been killed by troops.

“Boko Haram has realised that strategically there is a risk when only one side tells the whole tale,” David Otto, CEO of UK-based TGS Intelligence and Security Consultants, said. “They too want to tell their story to the audience that matters to them – the communities that they live in and that protects them by consent or by coercion.”

Otto also explained that by communicating using local languages Hausa and Kanuri, Boko Haram will be able to control the narrative as many communities do not have access to the main media outlets that use English.

He continued: “This radio station will not only be used to recruit, but to assure local people that all is well, to expose government ineffectiveness to the plight of the people and to warn off militants of imminent government or joint tasks force attacks. It is very likely that to avoid easy tracing of frequency wave by the security services, the radio station will be mobile and portable.”

Not a short war

Nigeria is heading an ongoing regional offensive against Boko Haram. The task force consists of 8,700 troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin. The offensive has scored some successes, such as the recapture of several territories and the release of thousands of civilians previously held captive.

Although Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, declared a technical victory over the insurgents in December 2015, Boko Haram has continued to carry out attacks with security experts warning underlying issues such as disenfranchisement, poverty and strong links with IS continue to pose major threats to stability in the region.

“This radio station shows Boko Haram is still thinking of what next will enhance their capacity,” Otto said. “Even when you successfully destroy one station, another one will be set up. The only sustainable strategy is to reach out to the target population in those remote villages and address their vulnerabilities. Regionally this calls for Cameroon and Nigeria to work hand in gloves in sharing key intelligence and surveillance results and the lack of this practical cooperation does not go unnoticed by Boko Haram leaders.

“It takes time but this war is not a short war. Boko Haram will continue to change their dance as the government changes the music.”

ibtimes.co.uk

In its latest attack in Nigeria’s Chibok town, Boko Haram fighters killed at least four villagers and abducted three women on Tuesday (14 June). The terrorist group in April 2014 had kidnapped more than 270 girls from a school in the northeastern Nigerian town, out of which about 50 girls managed to escape, but a majority of them still remain in its captivity.

According to reports, the latest attack took place at dawn at Kautuva village. The militants set houses on fire and fired from guns at villagers killing at least four, Reuters quoted eyewitnesses and a member of a vigilante group working with the army as saying. Ali Pagu, one of the villagers who survived the attack, said that they were lucky to escape unhurt. He added that some of them ran to Chibok. Another villager confirmed that the terrorists had kidnapped three women from their village.

Boko Haram fighters, declared an caliphate in the region and have killed and kidnapped thousands of people over seven years, forcing many of villagers to leave their homes and move to safer places. The kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 was criticised by world leaders and parents of the girls accused then president Goodluck Jonathan of not taking adequate measures to ensure the girls returned home safely.

In May this year, two girls kidnapped by Boko Haram were found – the first was reportedly freed by the militants, while the second was rescued by the Nigerian army. Amina Ali Nkek– one of the kidnapped girls – was found by a vigilante group breastfeeding a child. She was among the Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram two years back. However, villagers claimed that the second girl was not from Chibok.

Boko Haram recently said that it was willing to negotiate the release of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls, some of whom have reportedly died in captivity.

abna24.com

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the Security Council to approve an extra 2,500 peacekeepers for Mali. The move comes after two deadly attacks on UN bases in the north of the country. CCTV spoke to Mali’s Foreign Minister about what his government wants from the peacekeeping mission.

Mali gov’t wants more robust mandate for UN mission

He said, “We are heading to New York for the renewal of the UN mandate in Mali. We want the UN mission to be given a more robust mandate to the mission to be able to protect and defend it’s mandate. So the blue helmet to be provided with all the required equipment and tool to perform their job.”

Mali urges better UN-AU cooperation to fight terror

“We want to see more operational coordination with the Malian security and defence forces. But we want also for the UN to open doors in terms of better and stronger collaboration with the AU over regional initiatives to counter terrorism.”

cctv.com

Islamist group Boko Haram intensifies its attacks in border areas around Lake Chad

The bodies of 42 fishermen, who were killed by the Islamist group, Boko Haram, have been pulled from Lake Chad in Cameroon, the country’s military has announced.

The men had been seized on 8 June from the village of Darak, located near the Nigerian border, by militants who also killed 10 fishermen in nearby Touboun Ali on 6 June and 32 soldiers in Bosso, Niger on 3 June.

“Cameroonian sailors and villagers… saw several bodies floating on the water and immediately alerted security forces,” Cololenl Nomo Jean Claude told the African news website the DailySabah. “We recovered 42 bodies from the water between Saturday and Sunday. After identification, we found they were of Cameroonian, Nigerian and Chadian nationality. The bodies were immediately handed over to the families for burial.”

Boko Haram has fought a seven-year battle to form an Islamist caliphate in the region in which around 20,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million people displaced. Around 50,000 have been displaced in south eastern Niger in the last few days due to an onslaught by the group,according to Fox News.

This has prompted a doubling of food aid to southern Niger, the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) announced on Tuesday (14 June). “Many people have walked from 10 km to 40 kms(6 to 25 miles),” said WFP Niger deputy country director Belkacem Machane in a statement published by Reuters.

“They are arriving in a state of shock, and urgently need food, shelter, water – assistance with their most basic needs. They have now reached the end of their rope.”

Niger, Chad, Benin and Cameroon have all joined an international task-force to fight the insurgents, but often ordinary civilians are the ones who suffer most. BokoHaram has bombed many mosques, transport hubs and even refugee centres, as well as snatching over 200 schoolgirls from Chibok and selling them into slavery.

In March (2016) Cameroon announced the death penalty for 89 members of Boko Haram, a decision dismissed as counter-productive by anti-terrorism experts.

ibtimes.co.uk

The United Nations said that an estimated 40,000 people have been displaced since the June 3 attack reportedly by Boko Haram in Niger’s town of Bosso in the West African country’s border with Nigeria.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the security situation in Niger’s Bosso area remains volatile following the deadly attack, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here.

Since June 7, authorities and humanitarian partners have been progressively conducting assessments and delivering assistance in accessible areas, the spokesman said. “They have, so far, distributed water and high energy biscuit and provided ambulatory health care.”

However, only 25 percent of the required 74 million U.S. dollars needed for assistance in the Diffa region have been mobilized so far, he said. “Emergency stocks have been diverted from other programs to provide lifesaving assistance.”

“Aid organizations warn that additional resources are urgently required and must be made available immediately to prevent a humanitarian disaster,” he said.

The eastern part of Niger, close to the border with Nigeria, has witnessed since February 2015 repeated attacks launched by Boko Haram, who has claimed the lives of hundreds of Nigerien civilians and soldiers, the group has also displaced thousands of Nigerians as well as Nigeriens.

xinhuanet.com

A prominent female activist from the Niger Delta, Ankio Briggs, on Sunday condemned the Niger Delta Avengers for attacking oil and gas pipelines and installations in the region, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

Ms. Briggs, a close ally of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, said the avengers were from Somalia and not Nigeria.

The avengers have claimed responsibility for recent attacks on oil and power installations in the Niger Delta. The attacks have reduced almost by half Nigeria’s oil production and caused darkness across the country by destroying pipelines that supply gas to power stations.

Ms. Briggs spoke in Enugu at the 17th Annual Convention of the Igbo Youth Movement, IYM, with the theme `Nigeria, still in pursuit of true fiscal federalism’.

She also condemned the recent murder by an irate mob of a woman, Bridget Agbamihe, in Kano for blasphemy as well as herdsmen attacks in Nimbo, Enugu State and other parts of the country.

Also speaking at the event, Alex Ekwueme, Second Republic Vice-President, and a former Minister of Information, Jerry Gana called for true federalism and devolution of powers to the states.

They said that restructuring and resource control by regions was a panacea to end acts of uprising across the country.

The former vice-president, who chaired the event, said that the British colonialists had earlier divided the country to enable each region control and manage its resources without interference.
“The British colonial masters divided the country in such a way that every region will operate within its constitution,” he said.

The guest speaker and former Information Minister, Jerry Gana, said that the key solution to Nigeria’s problem was through true federalism and devolution of powers to states.

“True fiscal federalism is the only form of association that will allow peace and stability in the country and each region should be allowed to manage its resources the way they want it,” Mr. Gana said.

He noted that the formula for allocating revenue made the Federal Government to get richer while the states operated like beggars.

“States should be allowed to manage its resources to enable them govern their people the way they want and allocate some percentage to the Federal Government.

“Government should not be far from the people and the federating unit should be made strong to meet the needs of the people,” he said.

Mr. Gana recommended continuous dialogue and the implementation of the resolutions of national confab by the government as the only means the recent agitation and other national demand could be handled.

A Yoruba leader, Ayo Adebanjo, said that the various acts of political instability in the country were because the constitution under which the country was governed was not good for heterogeneous country like Nigeria.

“To put a stop at the various uprising in the country such as Niger Delta Avengers, MASSOB, IPOB etc, our constitution needs to be changed to allow for restructuring of the country under true federalism.

Earlier, the founder of IYM, Elliot Uko, said that the event was to honour prominent Nigerians who had contributed to the growth and development of the country.

He said Igbo youth were committed to building a stronger Nigeria and to reduce the tension in the region, adding that true federalism would help the country to grow and prosper.

The highlight of the event was presentation of awards to Messrs. Gana, Adebayo, detained Biafra secessionist leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and Ms. Briggs.

The event was also attended by former governors of Anambra, Chukwuemeka Ezeife and Peter Obi, and students from tertiary institutions in the South-East.

dailypost.ng

Commander of the United Nations’ most dangerous peacekeeping mission is not a title that Major General Michael Lollesgaard relishes.

The Danish commander heads up the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission in Mali—known as MINUSMA—which is seeking to stabilize the vast Sahelian country amid ongoing threats from militant groups, including Al-Qaeda’s North African wing. In the process of doing so, the mission has suffered 101 casualties since it was established in 2013, 68 of which were due to “malicious acts”—i.e. attacks from militants or opposition groups—making it the deadliest deployment for blue helmets in recent years.

The mission has again come under siege in recent weeks after a series of attacks perpetrated by militants of a variety of stripes. Five Togolese peacekeepers were killed in May in Mopti, central Mali, after their vehicle came under fire and then hit a landmine. The attack was not claimed by any group, though a Malian militant group known as the Macina Liberation Front is believed to operate in the region. Days later, a base used by Chinese peacekeepers was besieged by mortar or rocket fire, resulting in the death of one U.N. soldier (three other non-U.N. personnel were also killed in a separate attack in Gao.) The attacks were claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which said that a branch of its group known as Al-Mourabitoun led by veteran Algerian jihadi Mokhtar Belmokhtar was behind the incident.

“I’m very sad about that fact,” says Lollesgaard from Bamako, referring to the MINUSMA casualty count. “It’s my responsibility, it’s my task to set up the troops in the best possible way, to make sure that the soldiers are as safe as possible.”

The recent attacks have led U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to recommend that an extra 2,500 uniformed personnel be added to the ranks of MINUSMA, which currently has around 12,000 peacekeepers in the field. Lollesgaard says that the extra troops are required to upgrade the mission’s capacities in key areas—including countering improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which are increasingly used by militants in northern Mali—but that more boots on the ground will not provide a panacea to Mali’s problems.

“The only way to improve the situation here in the long term is to get the political process running,” says Lollesgaard. “You can add 5,000, you can add 10,000 [peacekeepers], but if we’re not getting progress in the implementation of the peace agreement, it will never be enough.”

The agreement referred to by Lollesgaard is a momentous peace deal signed by the Malian government and an alliance of rebels from the Tuareg ethnic group, who inhabit Mali’s vast and arid northern deserts, in June 2015. The deal was hammered out in light of the latest rebellion to seize northern Mali, a restive region that has seen four major uprisings since independence from France in 1960.

The most recent Tuareg rebellion occurred in 2012, when an organization called the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) began campaigning violently for greater autonomy for the ethnic group in northern Mali.

In March 2012, Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré was overthrown in the capital Bamako by mutinying soldiers dissatisfied with his handling of the Tuareg rebellion. In the midst of the chaos, the MNLA seized control of northern Mali’s three major cities—Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu—initially with the backing of Islamist militant groups including Ansar Dine. Once they had seized control and declared Azawad’s independence, however, the MNLA was overthrown by Ansar Dine and an AQIM splinter group, leaving the extremist militants in control of northern Mali from July 2012 until the start of 2013. At this point, and following a plea for foreign intervention by the Malian government, the French military launched a counter-operation—known as Operation Serval—to overthrow the militants, backed by African Union forces. The overthrow of the militants was swift, with most of northern Mali being returned to government control by February 2013. France still deploys more than 3,000 troops across five countries in the Sahel—a vast belt across Africa, separating the Saharan Desert from the savannas of central Africa—including in Mali, as part of Operation Barkhane, the successor mission to Operation Serval.

MINUSMA was established in the wake of this complex recent history in April 2013 with the mandate of overseeing a ceasefire, supporting peace and reconciliation and, significantly, protecting civilians. This last clause means that, according to Lollesgaard, peacekeepers are permitted to conduct “pre-emptive strikes” if they find militants whom they deem to be an immediate threat to the mission or civilians. But there is little support from Malian security forces in the north of the country, according to Marie Rodet, Mali expert and senior lecturer in the history of Africa at SOAS, University of London. “The state institutions haven’t been redeployed in northern Mali. The only security forces you have are [MINUSMA] and the French mission Barkhane,” says Rodet.

The U.N. mission draws its military personnel from some 48 countries—from near neighbors Niger and Burkina Faso to distant countries such as Bangladesh—and the varying levels of training that each troop-contributing country provides serves to complicate matters, according to Lollesgaard. He highlights a lack of counter-IED training as particularly significant—Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants regularly use landmines and roadside bombs to attack, such as when five Chadian peacekeepers were killed in Kidal, northeastern Mali, in May. “This [IED use] is a threat that is growing and growing and we need to adapt here, and it takes a lot of training. We would prefer that most of that training was done in the country before they arrive, but currently that’s not the case,” says Lollesgaard.

As well as within northern Mali, Al-Qaeda has been stepping up its attacks across West Africa. AQIM or its affiliates have claimed responsibility for at least three major attacks in the past eight months. One of these took place in the Malian capital Bamako, when gunmen raided the Radisson Blu hotel, killing some 20 people. The others occurred in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, where militants took control of a hotel and fired on a nearby cafe, killing 30 people; and in the coastal town of Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast, where 19 people were killed in an attack on a beach resort. The U.N. commander says he is concerned by the ability of militant groups to seep across the region’s borders, which he describes as “close to non-existent.” “They can operate within a number of countries without being attacked or influenced in any way. This is, of course, an issue,” says Lollesgaard.

As Lollesgaard indicates, the state of affairs in northern Mali has not progressed much since the peace deal was signed in June 2015. Both sides have criticized each other for stalling on the terms—which include the disarmament of militias and the integration of Tuareg groups into joint military patrols in the region—and, despite the U.N.’s pleading, not a huge amount seems to have changed on the ground. “The implementation of the agreement is at a very low point at the moment,” says Rodet.

Despite the manifold challenges facing MINUSMA and northern Mali as a whole, Lollesgaard is optimistic. He says that, should the political process pick up pace, he could envisage MINUSMA winding down within the next three to four years. Lollesgaard says the fact that Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop spoke of an exit strategy for MINUSMA when addressing the U.N. in January was a good sign—“it’s always good to have an exit strategy.”

The force commander himself could be out of Mali by then—unit commanders usually rotate on a two-year cycle, and Lollesgaard is already 15 months into his term—but Lollesgaard says that, despite the high casualty count, there is no other mission he’d rather be working on. “It’s very challenging but I hope that people feel that we’re trying the best we can,” he says. “If somebody feels they can do it better or if the U.N. feels they can find someone to do it better then I’m happy to go home, but I’m not going to ask to do that.”

newsweek.com

Troops in northern Cameroon set out Friday for a fresh push against Boko Haram militants, a week after the terror group carried out its deadliest attack in Niger in more than a year.

The militants raided a military post in Bosso, Niger, killing at least 26 soldiers. Niger’s government said 55 insurgents were also killed. The U.N. refugee agency said about 50,000 residents had fled.

General Jacob Kodji, one of Cameroon’s top commanders in the north, said troops from Niger and Chad would attack Boko Haram strongholds in Niger, while his men would organize raids to stop the terrorists from getting reinforcements from or escaping to hideouts around the Lake Chad Basin and the Sambisa Forest in Nigeria.

Kodji said the area of operations would span more than 400 kilometers. The operations will be dangerous, he said, because the insurgents are increasingly using land mines and holding civilians hostage as human shields.

Colonel Didier Badjeck, Cameroon’s military spokesman, accused Boko Haram fighters of harassing the population along the country’s border with Nigeria, saying fighters had been stealing food and killing residents.

Badjeck said Boko Haram had been staging attacks daily for three weeks. After an attack on one of its positions, Cameroon’s military struck back against the Islamic militant group Friday, he said.

voanews.com

African Union peacekeepers killed about 240 al-Qaeda-linked militants in clashes at an Ethiopian military base in central Somalia on Thursday, Security Minister Abdirisaq Omar said.

Nine peacekeepers died in the fighting near Halgan, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of the capital, Mogadishu, that began when al-Shabaab insurgents attacked the base at dawn, Omar said on state radio on Thursday.

Ethiopian soldiers are part of African Union Mission in Somalia, which is trying to restore security to the Horn of Africa country, where civil war has raged for more than two decades.

The raid follows an attack by al-Shabaab in January on a base in Somalia used by Kenyan soldiers, in which the Islamists said 100 troops were killed. Kenya’s government acknowledged there were fatalities without giving a death toll.

bloomberg.com

Niger’s defense minister says his country and Chad will send troops to neighboring Nigeria to fight Boko Haram extremists.

Hassoumi Massaoudou said late Thursday that the military deployment by the two countries is meant to secure their borders from Islamic extremists, who have staged several attacks in recent weeks in Niger, including one in Bosso that killed at least 26 soldiers.

He would not give more details on the number of soldiers, or their timing, but said they will remain in Nigeria’s Borno state until the zone is secured.

The two countries, along with Cameroon and Nigeria, are part of a multinational force committed to fighting Boko Haram.

The seven-year insurgency by the Nigeria-based extremists has killed at least 20,000 people and displaced 2.7 million people.

ap.org