BOKO HARAM:Army imposes 24-hr curfew on Maiduguri after boko haram attacks

Firstclass Newsline~In what appears like a resumed effort to launch
attacks on Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, Boko Haram insurgents
Wednesday night struck again in the city, this time killing some 52
persons in various attacks on some communities within the precinct of
the state capital.
Speaking on the casualty figure in the attack, a member of the youth
vigilante group told Firstclass newsline crew on phone in Maiduguri
on Thursday that 13 persons were killed near the Giwa military
Barracks in the town Wednesday evening when six women who pretended to
have escaped from Boko Haram captivity detonated the explosives
strapped on them.
The Boko Haram terrorists who had been routed in recent times by the
re-invigorated Nigerian military along with the troops from Niger,
Chad and Cameroun had suffered massive attacks as their abodes
including the notorious Sambisa forest had been bombarded by the
co-ordinated attacks by the military. As a result, they have been
unable to plan and execute any significant attack in weeks.
The insurgents suffered another setback when some of their members
were reportedly killed in far away Iraq; an incident which has
confirmed the touted link between Boko Haram and Islamic State (IS).
The five Boko Haram members who went for training, according to The
Cable News were killed on been confirmed on Wednesday by the Mosul
Youth Resistance Movement, Iraq. The movement, which was formed to
fight IS in Mosul, reportedly killed the five Boko Haram insurgents
according to BasNew. Saed Mamuzini, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
Mosul spokesperson, told BasNews that the youth movement killed the
insurgents in the Dargaza neighbourhood of eastern Mosul. Mamuzini
said: "The Nigerian Boko Haram militants were in Mosul to take part in
a military training course conducted by Islamic State."
A few days ago, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a school in Yobe State.
According to the youth vigilante member, the six adult females who
carried out the attack, were seen by soldiers and some members of the
youth vigilante group near the Army barracks.
He said they were approaching the checkpoint near the barracks when
the military and the youth vigilantes tried to frisk them before they
detonated the bomb on them which led to their death and in the process
the killing of six members of the youth vigilante group and three
soldiers.
He said there were several persons that were equally injured by the
massive explosion.
He said: "Our members were killed and some are lying on hospital beds
as a result of the bombs detonated by these useless wives of Boko
Haram that came to attack us yesterday.
"Our men and the soldiers thought they were helpless and hapless women
that were in Boko Haram captivity but they took us by surprise and
killed six of our active members."
He added: "We will not allow this to demoralise us though. We will not
relent until we crush them all, this cannot just stop us from fighting
them, we shall kill them all."
Confirming the casualties from the attack near the military barracks,
the spokesman of the youth vigilante group in Borno State, Mr Jubrin
Gunda, said yesterday that 13 people were indeed lost in the attack.
Gunda, who spoke on phone to firstclass newsline in Maiduguri,
equally disclosed that one of the top commanders of the Islamist sect
was caught in Dumsa, a village in the troubled state.
He said: "The attack on Wednesday was massive and the insurgents
deployed female suicide bombers, in fact six of them were involved."
He equally said the death toll recorded by the insurgents was massive
as they had to flee when they met the superior firepower of the
military.
He said: "The military was able to repel the insurgents. Our men (the
youth vigilante group) were also involved in the operation.
"I am on my way to Dumsa right now to get delivery of one of the
chieftains of Boko Haram that was arrested by our men there."
However, a resident of Ba'ale village in the state, Yunus Modu, said
that the insurgents killed 29 persons in the village during the
attempted invasion of Maiduguri by the Islamists.
Modu said the insurgents also injured 30 persons, torched 20 houses
and five shops.
In a phone conversation with journalists, Modu claimed that when the
insurgents were passing through the village towards Maiduguri, some of
the villagers that were running helter skelter on sighting them were
killed.
He said the villagers had to bury 29 persons yesterday morning and
equally took over 30 others injured to the hospital.
He said those who returned to the community yesterday morning
performed the Muslim prayer over the dead in front of the village
head's house before they were taken for burial.
Another villager, who spoke anonymously, said 10 corpses were picked
on the streets, while 19 others were picked from the bushes.
The source, who said the corpses had been buried according to Islamic
rites, added that the villagers on spotting the insurgents, locked
their houses and shops with many running into the surrounding bushes.
He said: "Our people were confused and panic-stricken and many had to
flee into the bush. We returned today (yesterday) morning to pick 10
dead bodies on the streets and when we combed the bushes we saw 19
corpses."
He described the situation as "terrible and horrible", lamenting that
the insurgents, who killed indiscriminately, shot both the old and the
young.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Army, which seemed a little jolted by the
attack, has since responded by slamming a 24-hour curfew on the
capital of the troubled state.
The insurgents were repelled by the military at the outskirts of the
town Wednesday evening when they (insurgents) attempted to overrun the
city by launching coordinated attacks on the city.
A staccato of gunshots was heard throughout the night as the military
embarked on a massive operation to push back the insurgents who were
intercepted at Bale, a village in Jere Local Government Area of the
state and a few kilometers from Maiduguri.
Although the gunfire has since ceased, the army is believed to be
undertaking a mop-up exercise where some areas are thoroughly searched
in order to sweep them off of all insurgents.
In a statement yesterday, the Deputy Director, Army Public Relations
in charge of 7 Division of the Nigeria Army, Col. Tukur Gusau, said:
"In view of the recent development within Maiduguri metropolis, a
24-hour curfew is hereby imposed on the city. This is done to protect
lives and property of innocent and law abiding people of Maiduguri.
"The Nigerian Army wishes to once again thank you for your continuous
support and cooperation. The situation is firmly under control."
In another development, the Acting Director, Army Public Relations,
Col. Sani Usman, has said that no soldier was lost in the pushback of
insurgents who attempted to gain entry into Maiduguri.
The spokesman of the Nigeria Army in a text message to some
journalists said: "We did not lose any soldier in Maiduguri."
Before the text message, he had earlier told journalists that the
24-hour curfew on Maiduguri was a measure aimed at mopping up any
trace of insurgents that might have sneaked into the town during the
attack.
He said the curfew would be lifted as soon as the situation improved.
He revealed that the military succeeded in bombing the insurgents who
attempted to enter Maiduguri through the cashew garden at the Kayamla
village located at the outskirts of Maiduguri, which is about 25
kilometres away from the town.
He said the military deployed sophisticated and modern weapons that
were newly acquired to engage the insurgents along the trenches dug at
the border to Maiduguri.
Usman noted that the gun duel in the trenches accounted for the
strange loud noise the people of the town were hearing Wednesday
evening.
He asserted that everything is under control and now calm.
Firstclassnewsline.net