theeastafrican.co.ke

As Nigeria rings in 2016, the ever-present threat of violence by Boko Haram hangs heavy over Africa’s most populous country, despite official claims that the battle against the terrorist group has been “technically” won.

After setting a Dec. 31 deadline to rid his country of Boko Haram, President Muhammadu Buhari told the BBC: “I think technically we have won the war because people are going back into their neighborhoods.”
In his New Year message to the nation, Buhari commended the military for “significantly curtailing the insurgency” but acknowledged there was “still a lot of work to be done in the area of security.”
“This government will not consider the matter concluded until the terrorists have been completely routed and normality restored to all parts of the country that have been adversely affected by the Boko Haram insurgency,” he said.

But despite the official assurances, violence and fear continue to stalk several major cities in Nigeria’s troubled northeast.
Late last month, more than 50 people were killed in a 48-hour wave of attacks in the mainly Muslim region that were blamed on the terrorists.
Boko Haram has resorted to suicide bombers — many of them young children — to wage its war for an independent “Islamic” state in the country. The extremist group has also spread its bombing campaign to neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

“Boko Haram is still a big threat despite the government’s claim that the group has been weakened,” said Ibrahim Kulo, 47, a resident of the violence-wracked northeastern city of Maiduguri. “One cannot venture six miles outside the city without the fear of Boko Haram ambush. We live in real danger of Boko Haram,” he said.

Sanusi Ahmad, 33, voiced similar fears. “Boko Haram remains a threat. I don’t believe it when the government says they have defeated Boko Haram,” said the resident of the northern city of Kano. “I agree that the military has made substantial progress in the fight against the group,” he said. “But the fact that Boko Haram can still carry out attacks like the ones… last week is an indication that they are still a serious threat. Although there has been a lull in attacks in Kano, the threat still remains.”
“We don’t know when and where the next attack will occur.”

The latest attacks “underscore the difficulty of dealing comprehensively with such a group,” said Nigerian political analyst Chris Ngwodo.
“The president said some days ago that Boko Haram had been technically defeated. What they meant to say was that the group’s ability to stage attacks has been seriously degraded,” Ngwodo added.
But despite the deadline passing, Ngwodo said Buhari still enjoys the backing of most Nigerians in the fight against Boko Haram. “A lot of people felt that the previous administration (of president Goodluck Jonathan) was simply at sea.

Indeed, they were incompetent when it came to dealing with security threats,” Ngwodo said. But he said Buhari should seek to change his strategy to end the insurgency, which has claimed more than 17,000 lives since it began in 2009. In a possible sign of this tactical change, Buhari said on Wednesday his government was “prepared to negotiate” with the Boko Haram leadership “without precondition” over the release of 219 kidnapped schoolgirls from Chibok once “credible” leaders were identified for talks.
He also hinted he could ban the wearing of hijabs or other headwear by Muslim women if insurgents continued to use veiled women to carry out suicide attacks.

arabnews.com

Cameroon President Paul Biya welcomed the engagement of U.S. troops in his country’s fight against Boko Haram insurgents. But many Cameroonians do not yet understand the role of the troops in the war.

President Biya in his end of the year message said Boko Haram had remained a major challenge to his country’s development, peace and security, and saluted what he called the experience and expertise of American troops in helping Cameroon.

He said he specially thanks the U.S. government and is highly delighted with the confidence of the American people, especially now that their troops have been providing vital information and training for his country’s military.

Thirty-year-old Muslim youth leader Bouba Ahijo said residents of Cameroon’s northern town of Garoua were told U.S. troops had come to liberate them from Boko Haram atrocities. But he said he is still not aware what the Americans have been doing more than two months after they arrived.

He expected the U.S. forces to fight alongside Cameroonian soldiers to defeat Boko Haram, but they have instead stayed in their offices since they came. He questions why the Americans have not attacked Boko Haram, as he hears they attacked an Islamic State base in Iraq.

Cameroon has been fighting a Boko Haram insurgency that spilled over into its territory from Nigeria three years ago. According to the United Nations more than 20,000 people have lost their lives and more than two million people have been displaced.

The head of the Marines contingent, Colonel Mike Davis, described the type of support the United States is giving the Cameroon army in the fight against Boko Haram.

“Cameroon government asked the U.S. government to support them in the fight against Boko Haram, so what we are doing is assisting the Cameroonian government in the fight against Boko Haram. That support is in a way of remotely piloting aircraft among other things, training and some security stuff,” said Davis.

Cameroon Army General Ndjonkep Mehomy Frederick, one of the top commanders of Cameroon troops fighting the Boko Haram insurgency, said the assistance they are receiving from the Americans is basically training and intelligence sharing.

He said the U.S. troops have excellent and up-to-date drones that give them vital and timely information, allowing them to then surgically intervene against the terrorists wherever an attack is taking place or is being planned. He said the Americans have been fully cooperating in surveillance and information sharing, which is very vital in the war against the terrorists.

Cameroon military spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said people should not expect U.S. soldiers at the battle front, but that they are very instrumental in Cameroon’s recent successes against the insurgents.

He said American soldiers are in Cameroon exclusively to help eliminate Boko Haram with their advanced technology, and that from the month of February 2016, they will be fully operational when the rest of the remaining contingent arrives in Cameroon to make up the 300 promised by President Barack Obama.

In December, Cameroon announced its soldiers and Nigeria’s military had liberated more than 900 people from Boko Haram strongholds. Government officials said they benefited from the U.S. technical expertise.

The U.S. military is setting up its first drone base in Africa and Cameroon believes it is likely to host it. Soldiers of the central African nation are learning how to use drones for surveillance from the U.S. Marines.

voanews.com

At least one person was killed and a dozen injured in a series of grenade attacks early Friday in Burundi’s capital Bujumbura, police and official sources said.

The violence put an end to three weeks of relative calm after December 11 attacks on three military bases which left 87 dead, according to an official tally — although UN sources estimate the toll was far higher.

“A grenade was thrown into a bar around 10:00pm” in the central district of Buyenzi, police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye told AFP, saying that 10 people were injured in the attack.

An official source who did not give his name said one person had died. The source added the bar was a regular haunt of members of the ruling party.

Nkurikiye said three policemen were also hurt in two other attacks in the city, where residents reported hearing shots and grenade blasts for around an hour in the early hours of Friday.

He added police would tackle any upsurge in violence after last year saw a failed coup in May amid unrest which sparked fears of a return to civil war.

Tensions rose after President Pierre Nkurunziza said he was seeking a controversial third term, which he went on to win in July.

UN sources estimate last year’s unrest prompted some 200,000 people to leave the country.

Mali has extended by three months a nationwide state of emergency initially imposed following a deadly jihadist attack on a hotel in the capital in November, officials said Wednesday.

The government on Monday submitted a bill authorizing the fresh extension to March 31 “because of serious threats to the security of persons and their property”, according to an official statement.

Mali initially declared a state of emergency after 20 people, 14 of them foreigners, were killed in an attack claimed by two jihadist groups on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako on November 20. It was extended twice, and the latest 10-day period was due to expire on Thursday.

manilatimes.net

Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza says he will consider any deployment of African Union peacekeepers in his troubled nation an attack against which he will retaliate militarily.

“Everyone has to respect Burundi’s borders. In case they violate those principles, they will have attacked the country and every Burundian will stand up and fight against them,” Nkurunziza announced in a national address on Wednesday that sent shockwaves through the international community and left many wondering how the continental union of nations will respond.

“The country will have been attacked and it will respond,” he said.

Nkurunziza faces increasing opposition from the AU and the international community over his unpopular quest to extend his tenure as president of the tiny central African nation. He weathered a May coup attempt and won a disputed election in July, though violence has continued.

According to South Africa-based security analyst Stephanie Wolters, Nkurunziza’s brio comes as no surprise, as Burundi’s top elected official has been building up to the statement with increasingly strong rhetoric since first proposing constitutional changes allowing him to seek a third presidential term.

Wolters, who heads the Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis program at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, says Nkurunziza’s direct challenge to the AU, which only recently began flexing its muscles in terms of continental peace and security issues, bodes poorly for continuing peace talks in Uganda.

“I think the fact that Nkurunziza has said he will attack African Union troops, it’s not a blow to the AU,” she told VOA. “It makes his government look entirely irresponsible; it makes the government look like a government that doesn’t want to resolve a crisis. The African Union now, of course, is going to have to figure out how tough it wants to be in response to that.”

While the AU has legal backing to send in troops anyway, that move might only escalate the conflict, thereby defeating the primary purpose of a peacekeeping force. Rather than overruling the president, Wolters suggests AU officials should instead put peacekeeping plans on pause and strike a deal to round out its complement of neutral military and civilian observers in Burundi.

She also says Nkurunziza’s threat could backfire: In recent years, Burundi has been an active contributor to AU peacekeeping missions, which means Burundian soldiers may find themselves face to face with their former battle buddies.

“Nkurunziza may well say, ‘we’re going to combat AU forces,’ but there’s really no guarantee that the army is going to do that,” she said. “In fact, this is a key point here. The army has been less than willing to participate in Nkurunziza’s crackdowns on civilians, and so his threat may very well be very hollow. This may very well be the point at which the army says, ‘that’s it, we’ve had enough of this guy, we’re not going to go combating African Union troops, who, sometimes, we fight alongside.’”

Nkurunziza’s comments were issued as the specter of regional conflict, messy regional politics and ethnic violence loom: Burundi and neighboring Rwanda have long been politically at odds, with Burundi frequently accusing Rwanda of meddling in its affairs. Most recently, Bujumbura alleged that Kigali recruited Burundian refugees to overthrow Nkurunziza’s government.

Complicating things further, the presidents of the two nations are from the two rival ethnic groups that clashed in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Both tiny nations are dwarfed by the giant, messy Democratic Republic of Congo, whose social and political troubles often spill over borders, wreaking havoc throughout the region.

voanews.com

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has revealed that most female suicide bombers being used by the Boko Haram sect do not know that they are carrying bombs.

He made the assertion on Tuesday while reacting to the spate of bombings being perpetrated by teenage girls in recent times at the corporate headquarters of Punch Nigeria Limited in Magboro, Ogun State.

According to Mohammed, the bombs are usually given to the girls as parcels to be delivered in a busy place while a man would stand at a distance to detonate the bombs.

“Suicide bombers usually walk in threes. There is the man who leads. The leader will ensure that the small girl who is strapped with the bomb knows the road. The small girl never knows what she is carrying.

“She is simply told to go and deliver a parcel at a market. That leader would have taken her to the market days before to show her the direction of the market. On the day she is to deliver the package, the man will lead and by then she is strapped.

“Then there is another person that tails her from behind who will make sure that she doesn’t change her mind or turns in another direction. These bombs are detonated remotely. This is how cowardly these people are. These girls are not indoctrinated. Most of them don’t know what they are carrying. Some of them do it for as little as N5, 000 which is given to their parents,” Mohammed said.

dailypost.ng