Cameroon’s army has repulsed an attack by Boko Haram and killed three of the Nigerian Islamist militants in heavy fighting in the Far North region of the country, a Cameroon government spokesperson said on Thursday.

The attack represented a change of tactics by the militants following a series of battlefield defeats this year in which they have lost territory to a regional force that comprises Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, spokesperson Issa Tchiroma said.

“Early Tuesday morning around 03:40 an enemy column in four-wheel drive vehicles opened fire on positions held by our defence forces,” he said of the attack in Bodo town.

“There followed violent combat until dawn. Faced with the repost of our soldiers, the aggressors beat a retreat leaving behind three dead, a quantity of weapons and a lot of blood,” he said, adding that no government soldiers were hurt.

The militants are trying to “make their voice heard and prove that they continue to exist,” he said. Boko Haram rarely comments directly on military action and there was no independent confirmation of the battle.

Two military sources close to the fighting who declined to be identified said 18 militants were killed in the fighting.

The regional operation has reduced attacks in recent months but bombings in Nigeria suggest Boko Haram may be shifting its focus further south and west, towards the capital, Abuja.

Boko Haram has been trying to establish a state adhering to strict sharia law through an insurgency that began in 2009. It controlled an area larger than Belgium at the end of 2014 before the regional offensive began.

Extremists fighting for Boko Haram in Nigeria have offered to free more than 200 kidnapped women and girls in exchange for senior militant leaders imprisoned by the government, it has been claimed.

The offer is limited to the 219 students who were taken from a boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014, sparking global outrage and a campaign to ‘Bring Back Our Girls’.

According to a human rights activist involved in the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity, the jihadis have agreed in principal to the release of the girls in exchange for 16 jailed members of Boko Haram – a brutal terror group affiliated with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

At least 3,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia, reportedly for an attack on al-Shabab militants.

Residents of the southwestern Gedo region said troops with tanks and armored vehicles began crossing the border Monday and have been seen in the town of Luq.

Earlier, authorities in the region told VOA that forces are being mobilized for an offensive in areas still controlled by al-Shabab, including the group’s last major stronghold, the town of Bardere.

The Islamist militants have lost most of the territory they once controlled in Somalia but still carry out large-scale attacks. On Tuesday, an al-Shabab raid on homes in northeastern Kenya killed 14 people.

Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamic government and since then, Ethiopia has frequently sent troops across the border.

The Ethiopians often work in tandem with the African Union mission in Somalia, AMISOM, which played a major role in driving al-Shabab out of the capital, Mogadishu, and other areas.

Nigerian troops have arrested the mastermind of bombings in the central cities of Jos and Zaria this week that killed at least 69 people, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

No one has taken responsibility for the attacks but they bore the hallmarks of Islamist sect Boko Haram, which has been waging a six-year insurgency in Africa’s largest oil producer.

Over 850 Churches have so far been destroyed through the activities of the Boko-Haram Insurgents in the Northern part of the country, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has alleged.

Making this revelation in Ibadan yesterday was the President of the Fellowship, Felix Omobude during his interaction with journalists after his visit to the Oyo State chapter of the Fellowship at the Conference Room of Rehoboth Cathedral, Oluyole Estate.

He decried the current onslaught by the Islamic Fundamentalists and asked the Federal Government to brace up in its activities to curb them and let peace truly reign in the country.

The religious leader, who lamented that the North-East and some other areas of the Northern part of the country had been set back for several years aligned with the approach of the government in its desire to dialogue with the sect should they show readiness.

He said: “By my understanding of the government position, it is not that the government is going to beg the insurgents, the war against them will continue, if they say they want to talk, no government will turn deaf ears to them.

“We are appealing to our people as well as our leaders to come together and treat the insurgents as criminals which they are truly, because nobody can justify the dastardly act of bombing places of worship.

At least 20 people have been killed in a bomb attack in north-western Nigeria’s Zaria city, state governor Nasir El-Rufa’i has said.

A suspected suicide bomber targeted civil servants at a government building in the city, witnesses said.

Emergency workers have rushed to the scene to help evacuate the wounded.

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which often targets northern Nigeria, has stepped up attacks since President Muhammudu Buhari took office in May.

The group has not yet commented on the latest attack.

Witnesses said workers had been queuing up seeking employment under Mr Buhari’s administration when the bomb detonated in Zaria’s Sabon Gari district.

“I am sad that a terrorist bomb attack just killed 20 people in Sabon Gari Zaria,” Mr El-Rufa’i said on his Twitter account.

“We call on our citizens to be vigilant and avoid crowded places like markets, mosques, churches and motor parks in the next few weeks,” he added.

A female suicide bomber last night blew herself into pieces outside a popular Kano Mosque, Umar Ibn Khattab, on Zoo Road in the Kano metropolis a few minutes after rounding off the night prayers.

An eyewitness, Sulaiman Ibrahim, said the teenage bomber attempted to enter the mosque when the explosives went off, in the process killing herself and injuring some members of the vigilante group guarding the mosque.

This came as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. General Kenneth Minimah, monday released of 182 suspected members/associates of the Boko Haram insurgents to the Borno State Governor, Alhaji Kassim Shettima.

The eyewitness said the incident happened at about 9.21p.m. after the congregation of Isha and Tarawe prayers, which were conducted earlier than usual.

It was gathered that the bomber had observed that the vigilante members attached to the mosque screening people with electronic devices, and decided to retreat and hide within the vicinity of the mosque.

According to him, the girl eventually summoned up courage and headed towards the mosques but missed her target and blew herself off instead.

Police spokesman in Kano, Musa Magaji Majia, confirmed the explosion, saying that it was only the female suicide bomber who was killed in the attempted attack on the mosque.

Majia said the area was condoned off by a combined team of security operatives, adding that calm was restored shortly afterwards.
He said only few persons sustained injuries during the failed attacked.

He advised residents of Kano to remain vigilant and report any suspicious persons or objects to the nearest security formation in the state.

Meanwhile, Minimah while  handing over the suspects to the governor at the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army, said the suspects had been cleared by military authority after necessary investigations.

“We are handing over 182 detainees who were suspected to have link with Boko Haram. They are 100 men, 24 women, 40 underage boys and 18 children.

“They have been cleared, we have decided to hand them over to the state government.
“They have been thoroughly investigated and acquitted of any involvement in the activities of Boko Haram or connected with the group,” Minimah said.

Shettima who received the released detainees, commended the military for respecting the rights of the suspects.

He said government would assist the suspects to return to normal life.
Maiduguri was shutdown for the celebration of the Nigerian Army Day.

Minimah also said the nation’s soldiers had the onerous task of winning the war against the Boko Haram insurgents for the souls of their fallen colleagues to truly rest.

Speaking at this year Army Day celebration which was moved to the epicentre of the Boko Haram counter-insurgency war, the COAS who was at the graveyards of the fallen heroes of the ongoing war against the Boko Haram insurgents to lay a wreath, said: “The only way to honour our officers and men who lie ahead of me is to ensure that this war is won, and I promise that we will win this war.

“And I will also want to assure the families of the departed colleagues that they will not be forgotten as all the statutory requirements and privileges for children and families they left behind would be honoured and executed.”

He said: “The army is the strength of any nation. And the army is used to rate a nation in the international arena.

“I want to thank the Governor of Borno State for his continued support to the Nigeria Army in  the pursuance of Operation Zaman Lafiya and in this particular case of also, hosting of  the Nigeria Army Day celebration 2015. This has come with a cost and logistics which the governor has undertaken.

“It is a sad ceremony but it is also a ceremony that we must undertake to honour the dead, and for the living, and today, we are honouring the dead.”

Governor Shettima, who also spoke at the occasion, said against all belief Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, was not less unsafe than any other city in the country.

The governor, who was among the dignitaries who laid the wreath at the graveside of the fallen heroes, said: “Believe me, at the risk of exaggerating issues, Maiduguri is as secured as Lagos or Kaduna or any other city in this country. They all face the same challenges that Maiduguri is facing and we want to pay tribute to the gallant officers and men of the Nigeria army who have laid down their lives for this country to remain one indivisible entity.

“Hundreds of our soldiers have died in this counter-insurgency war. We have to respect our fallen soldiers, we have to pray for the repose of their souls but most importantly we have to make their families realise that they did not die in vain.

“This singularly act of coming down to Maiduguri to celebrate the Army Day and coming to identify with us shall be written in gold.
“There is psychology in warfare and the fact that the top hierarchy of the army is here in Maiduguri conveys a lot of message to the soldiers and to the rest of the world that Maiduguri is safe, accessible and secured.”

Meanwhile, for the umpteenth time, the Nigerian army authorities monday deferred the court martial of a brigadier general and 21 others in deference to the Army Day celebration.

The army had on Sunday revealed plans to continue the trial of the soldiers at the court martial sitting at the 9Brigade, Ikeja Cantonment, Lagos.

After concerted efforts to know the status and outcome of the court martial, THISDAY however gathered that it was postponed.
The reason for the postponement was because the army had declared yesterday a public holiday in commemoration of the 152 year anniversary of the force.

The sitting was said to have been tentatively fixed to continue today. This would not be the first time the court martial in Lagos would be postponed. The court martial was once postponed in January this year and later in March.

The 22 soldiers are being prosecuted for alleged offences committed during the ongoing war against Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east.

The soldiers on trial include a brigadier general, 14 colonels, a major, five captains and a second lieutenant, who are part of the 547 others being court martialed in Abuja and Jos.

The Malian Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine claimed it carried out a series of attacks against UN peacekeepers and Malian army targets in the country’s capital, Bamako, and border areas near Ivory Coast and Mauritania.

Fighters from Ansar Dine allied with other Islamist fighters helped seize Mali’s desert north after a Tuareg uprising in 2012 but were ousted by a French-led military operation a year later.

However, Islamist militants have intensified operations this year, attacking parts of the country’s west and south previously seen as secure and raising regional fears of a spillover in violence.

A statement sent to the Mauritanian website Alakhbar, which frequently publishes messages from Islamist groups, said that Ansar Dine claimed responsibility for an attack on the western Malian town of Nara on June 27. Mali’s defense ministry said 12 people were killed in the attack.

“God helped Islam’s youth to carry out several actions in 2015 against the Malian army,” the statement said. It was published on Sunday.

At least 14 people were killed and 11 wounded on Tuesday when gunmen attacked a northern Kenyan village, close to the border with war-torn Somalia, officials and Red Cross said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Somali-led Shebab militants have carried out a string of attacks in the region, highlighting the insecurity that plagues parts of the country.

The attack occurred at an area called Soko Mbuzi, a livestock market just outside the town of Mandera in Kenya’s far northeastern region, bordering Somalia and Ethiopia.

“People were sleeping when the attack happened, they just came and hurled explosives in the houses,” said Mandera County Commissioner Alex Ole Nkoyo, confirming 14 people had been killed in the attack in the early hours of Tuesday morning.