ABUJA: Nigerian warplanes are carrying out
airstrikes against Boko Haram militant bases in
northeast Borno state, a senior official said
Friday, in a government counterattack against
the group’s apparent drive to create an Islamist
enclave.
The official, who asked not to be named, told
Reuters Nigeria’s military was battling Boko
Haram fighters at Bama, 70 km southeast of
the Borno state capital Maiduguri.
Airstrikes have been carried out “on all the
Boko Haram bases,” the official said, adding
this reflected President Goodluck Jonathan’s
order for a “fully fledged war” against the
group which has waged a bloody insurgency
since 2009.
Military spokesmen have denied reports Bama
was overrun by heavily armed militants earlier
this week after they attacked it with captured
military vehicles and pickup trucks mounted
with machine guns, all part of a growing Boko
Haram arsenal.
“Bama today is the center of the military battle
with the terrorists ... Boko Haram is being
repelled by the Nigerian troops as we are
talking now,” the government official said,
without giving details of the operations or
casualties.
Nigeria’s air force and defense headquarters
did not respond to requests for comment and it
was not immediately possible to obtain
independent confirmation of the fighting.
The battle over Bama, and Boko Haram’s
storming of towns and villages to the north,
east and south of Maiduguri in recent weeks,
has raised fears of an attack on the Borno
state capital, prompting hundreds of civilians to
flee.
“Even today, we can see so many people
leaving ... the buses are going out plenty now,”
Musa Sumail, a human rights activist in
Maiduguri who reports on the violence in the
northeast, told Reuters. He said he had seen at
least one or two Nigerian government fighter
jets in the skies above Maiduguri.
Boko Haram, whose leader Abubakar Shekau
last month declared a “Muslim territory” in the
northeast after capturing the town of Gwoza on
the Cameroon border, is believed to be trying to
mimic ISIS in Syria and Iraq which announced
the creation of a separate caliphate.
Jonathan’s government, which faces an
election in February, has come under public
criticism for its apparent inability to check Boko
Haram’s five-year insurgency, which has
ravaged the poor northeast corner of Africa’s
biggest economy.
The group has also claimed shootings and
bombings across the north and, more
sporadically, in the federal capital Abuja and
even in the southern commercial hub Lagos.
The attacks have not reached the southern oil
fields of Africa’s No. 1 producer.
The U.S. is among several western allies
helping Nigeria’s military with training and
intelligence support. This was stepped up
following international outrage over Boko
Haram’s brazen abduction in mid-April of more
than 200 schoolgirls in the northeast. The girls
are still missing.
In a speech to a security meeting in Abuja
Thursday, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa said
Bama’s “apparent capture” by Boko Haram and
the threat of an assault on Maiduguri was a
“sober reality check” for Nigeria and its allies.
“We are past time for denial and pride,”
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that
Shekau’s announcement of an ISIS-style
“caliphate” showed how much the security
situation had worsened.
U.S. officials say more extensive security
cooperation has been hampered by persistent
allegations of human rights abuses leveled
against Nigeria’s army, which it denies, and
Nigeria’s sensitivity about outside meddling in
its affairs.
“The reputation of Nigeria’s military is at
stake,” Thomas-Greenfield said, pledging U.S
support for a border security initiative involving
Nigeria’s neighbors Cameroon, Chad and Niger
which will try to prevent Boko Haram from
extending its control over these remote frontier
zones of the lower Sahel.
The Sunni jihadist movement, whose name
means “western education is forbidden,” has
killed thousands since launching an uprising in
2009. Counterterrorism experts say links exist
between it and other Islamist groups, such as
Al-Qaeda’s North African franchise and
Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab, but
there has been little evidence so far of
extensive cooperation.
In Nigeria’s February polls, southerner
Jonathan is expected to seek re-election.
Many believe political tensions stemming from
the historic rivalry between Nigeria’s mostly
Muslim north and largely Christian south is
also stoking the violence.
A version of this article appeared in the print
edition of The Daily Star on September 06,
2014, on page 11.
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