Tag: Boko Haram

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned the “wanton carnage” of the jihadist terror group Boko Haram, noting that, should many of the human rights violations reportedly committed by the group be confirmed, they could be found guilty of crimes against humanity.

The Nigerian people have spoken, and they have elected a former military dictator from the nation’s Muslim north to defeat Boko Haram. President-elect Muhammadu Buhari vowed on Wednesday, in a more extensive second statement on his election victory, to “spare no effort” against the terrorist threat.

Perhaps the greatest success of Nigeria’s elections held last Saturday is that the Islamist terror group Boko Haram has failed to steal the biggest headlines for itself. Former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari is currently leading the polls with half a million more votes that incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan in an election marked more by allegations of fraud than terrorist violence.

Nigeria’s electoral commission began releasing the results of its Saturday presidential election on Monday, as delays triggered by protests, Boko Haram attacks, and faulty election technology marred an election already postponed by Islamist violence.

The Islamist radicals who have terrorized Nigeria for a decade struck again on Saturday, killing some 41 people to disrupt the African country’s national elections.

In January, the world’s single largest terror attack since 9/11 was carried out by Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group in northern Nigeria. That incident, which drew only passing notice from the West, saw the slaughter of 2,000 civilians in the border town of Baga. Boko Haram’s oath of allegiance to the Islamic State last weekend raises questions about how this will affect the group. Given Boko Haram’s demonstrable ruthlessness in Baga, a better question would be, why aren’t we aiming to “degrade and destroy” it, too?

It has long been feared that ISIS could ally with Somali terror group al-Shabaab, which has been tied to al-Qaeda. As Osama bin Laden’s gang fades and the Islamic State rises, ISIS might look like a better partner for the Somalian militants. ISIS recently accepted an oath of fealty from Boko Haram in Nigeria.

The Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram has abducted between 350-500 people from the northeast Nigerian town of Damasak, Borno state, according to a report by Reuters. The abduction follows news of Nigerian officials liberating a new town while the terror group lost two female suicide bombers to a premature detonation.

According to Veryan Khan of the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium, the great under-the-radar terror threat comes from an expanse of the Sahara Desert in Mauritania, where ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram are working together to train Western recruits for jihad, including terror attacks in Europe and North America. “The situation in Mauritania is a powder keg very few people are talking about,” Khan told Fox News.

The U.S. Marines, with more than a decade of experience with counterinsurgency (COIN) in Iraq and Afghanistan, could prove to be an important asset in working to contain and eventually defeat the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram, reports the Marine Corps Times.

A mass grave containing an estimated 100 bodies, most with their throats visibly cut through, was found in the northeastern Nigerian town of Damasak after Chadian and Nigerian forces eradicated occupying Boko Haram terrorists.

Witnesses in Nigeria claimed Boko Haram terrorists forced abducted women to marry members of the jihadist group only to later slaughter them before a battle, lest they remarry Nigerian troops or “non-believers.”

An elder Nigerian woman kidnapped by Boko Haram claims to have been told in captivity where the terrorist group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, is hiding, and where the group has hidden the more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno kidnapped in April 2014.

The French defense ministry unveiled France’s 2015 defense strategy last week, which was revised following the terrorist attacks in Paris and the Islamic extremist threat stemming from Africa, reports Vice News.

Nigerian troops reported this week that they discovered a facility they are describing as a “bomb factory” run by the radical Islamic group Boko Haram in northeast Borno state.

Foreign mercenaries, primarily from South Africa, are reportedly assisting the Nigerian military in their fight against terrorist group Boko Haram, which is now officially allied to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Military forces from Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon have now encircled Boko Haram forces and are trying to capture the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, alive.

The Nigerian town of Chibok, which became world-famous nearly a year ago as Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls during a physics exam, has condemned a federal government attempt to rebuild the doomed school as little consolation in light of the government’s failure to locate and rescue the abducted girls.