The battle against the Nigerian-based Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram is heating up. For a variety of reasons, Nigeria’s military has been unable to stop their advance, but when Boko Haram crossed the border into Cameroon they met stiffer resistance, and now Chad is preparing to move troops and equipment into northern Cameroon against the terrorist gang.
In a move that some are describing as purely symbolic, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened a preliminary investigation into war crimes committed by Israel during the summer 2014 Gaza war.
Ghana’s President John Mahama has said he and other African leaders will discuss plans next week to “deal permanently” with Boko Haram militants.
Amnesty International has released a report detailing the horrors of Boko Haram’s attack on the Nigerian town of Baga between January 2 and 7. Among the atrocities witnesses recount is the particularly gruesome killing of a woman while she was in labor, who was slaughtered along with an estimated 2,000 others in the town.
(Reuters) – Chad will send a large number of troops to neighboring Cameroon to help it fight increasing incursions from Boko Haram Islamist militants attacking from Nigeria, the Central African nation’s president said on Thursday.
A man claiming to be the leader of Nigerian jihadist terror group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has appeared in a new video this week praising the organizers of the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, condemning the Western nation’s “religion of democracy” and proclaiming that his terrorist group is “very happy” with the attack.
The Associated Press reports Cameroon’s government claims it killed 143 Boko Haram militants in a single five-hour firefight, when a Cameroonian military camp in Kolofata came under attack.
Actress and United Nations special envoy Angelina Jolie issued a statement this week calling on the United States and the international community to provide assistance to Nigeria in its fight with the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram.
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Survivors of an assault by Islamic militants that killed hundreds of civilians in Nigeria have described days of relentless violence in which, one witness said, some people were slaughtered “like insects.”
Nigerian Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama has called for “the same international support to tackle Boko Haram as France has received since it was hit by Islamist attacks last week.”
Two young girls killed at least three people yesterday when they blew themselves up in a market place in Potiskum, northern Nigeria. They were thought to have been around ten years of age. The attack comes just days after another
Criticism is mounting against French officials for not doing more to prevent Wednesday’s terrorist attack by means of closer surveillance of the two brothers who carried out the attack.
A man identifying himself as Abubakar Shekau, the man believed to lead the jihadist terror group Boko Haram, appears in a new video threatening to expand the group’s terrorist activities deeper into Cameroon, Nigeria’s neighbor. The video is filmed from afar at different angles, which does not allow experts to accurately identify the man.
The Islamic State created by ISIS in Syria and Iraq isn’t the only “caliphate” afflicting the world these days. Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria also claim to have created a caliphate, and followed a week in which they killed estimated thousands with the bombing of a marketplace using a ten-year-old girl as a suicide bomber.
After a coordinated three-day rampage on the town of Baga in northeast Nigeria, as well 15-20 other nearby towns, up to 2000 resident civilians have been killed.
The government of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas began the year with a resounding loss at the United Nations, failing to win a bid for the organization to recognize Palestine as a state. The move failed largely due to one member of the Security Council, Nigeria, abstaining from the vote. That vote, previously a near-guarantee in Palestine’s favor, has turned, and some suggest Boko Haram’s radical Islamist terror in Nigeria’s northeast could have contributed to the pivot.
Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Ambassador Samantha Power are being credited for their efforts in lobbying members of the UN Security Council to vote against a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Yet if they had been on top of their game, the vote never would have been held.
The last year was a bad one for international peace and security. Sure, there were bright spots in 2014. Colombia’s peace process looks hopeful. The last round of Iran’s nuclear talks was more successful than many think. Tunisia, though not yet out of the woods, showed the power of dialogue over violence. Afghanistan bucked its history and has, notwithstanding many challenges, a government of national unity.
Though many American political junkies will spend 2015 speculating about presidential contenders, you can get a more immediate fix by watching the following slate of important races across the globe.
Boko Haram kidnapped at least forty boys in Malari village in northeast Borno State, Nigeria. The incident transpired on New Year’s Eve, but due to the town’s isolation, residents only reached the capital of Maiduguri to report it on Friday.
Islamist terror group Boko Haram now controls about twenty percent of Nigeria, The New York Times reported this week. The land grab amounts to over 70,000 square miles of territory, which is between about two and six times the square miles of land reportedly held by the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.
Hamas’s popularity within Gaza surged to its highest levels during the summer Gaza War, but is now fading after what was essentially a Hamas defeat in the war.
For the first time, Cameroon’s air force conducted air strikes in support of the army against Boko Haram positions in northern Cameroon, forcing the terrorists to retreat.
A 13-year old Nigerian girl said her father gave her to Boko Haram extremists, adding that she was arrested after refusing the jihadist group’s demand to carry out a suicide attack.
Nigerian Zahra’u Bangida, 14, claims her parents handed her over to radical Islamic group Boko Haram to be a suicide bomber. Authorities arrested her on December 10 after a double suicide attack killed ten people at a market in Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria.
