World View: Up to 2,000 Nigerian Civilians Killed in Three-Day Boko Haram Massacre

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Up to 2000 Nigeria civilians killed in three-day Boko Haram massacre
• Cameroon requests international help to fight Boko Haram
• Some random political and media notes

Up to 2000 Nigeria civilians killed in three-day Boko Haram massacre

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau (AFP)

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 towns are now “virtually nonexistent” according to local officials:

These towns are just gone, burned down. The whole area is covered in bodies.

This would make the massacre among the most deadly terror attacks in history.

There’s supposed to be a Multi-National Joint Task Force– a French-sponsored alliance of Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad– stationed in a army base near Baga. The base was supposed to provide protection for Baga and the other nearby towns. But last Saturday, there were only Nigerian soldiers in the army base, and Boko Haram overran the base, as the Nigerian troops once again fled rather than fight. The massacre in Baga began four days later.

Following the philosophy of better late than never, Nigerian ground forces backed by air strikes are now fighting to reclaim Baga and the military base.

In April 2014, Boko Haram abducted over 200 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok. Those girls are still missing.

Nigeria is one of the biggest oil producers in the world. It’s thought that Boko Haram is trying to create a secessionist state in northeast Nigeria. NBC News and Reuters

Cameroon requests international help to fight Boko Haram

President Paul Biya of Cameroon is appealing for international military help to fight Boko Haram. According to Biya, Boko Haram has gone beyond being a regional threat to being a global threat that has attacked Mali, the Central African Republic and Somalia:

A global threat calls for a global response. Such should be the response of the international community, including the African Union and our regional organisations.

The appeal follows a threat from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a youtube video posted on Monday:

Oh Paul Biya, if you don’t stop this, your evil plot, you will taste what has befallen Nigeria … Your troops cannot do anything to us.

The “evil plot” is Biya’s attempt to rid Cameroon of Boko Haram. ( “30-Dec-14 World View — Cameroon’s air force bombs Boko Haram positions, forcing retreat”) Biya ordered air strikes after the terrorists began crossing the border from Nigeria and attacked villages in Cameroon’s north. Nigerian Tribune and AFP

Some random political and media notes

• The media, even al-Jazeera, are providing nonstop coverage of the events in Paris this week, where a dozen people were killed, while ignoring the Nigeria massacre that occurred in the same time frame, where 2000 people may have been killed.
• As I wrote in “29-Dec-14 World View — Do news organizations ignore jihadist attacks on Christians?”, there is a massive Muslim versus Muslim war growing in the Mideast, North Africa and South Asia. The Paris attack is collateral damage from that war, and the number of similar attacks will grow as the war grows.
• As horrific as the Paris massacre was, it was not an existential threat to France. But the Boko Haram attack is an existential threat to Nigeria, and the attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL) are existential threats to the countries of the entire Mideast.
• Everyone’s been bloviating about freedom of speech, but France has very strict, very irrational blasphemy laws: it’s illegal to deny the Holocaust, and last year they made it illegal to deny that Turkey committed the Armenian genocide.
• Blasphemy is a crime in Ireland and the UK, just as it is in Pakistan. ( “20-Sep-12 World View — France closes embassies after magazine publishes Mohammed satire”)
• After the 2012 Benghazi diplomatic compound attack, killing an American ambassador and other American officials, the Obama administration blamed the attack on an anti-Muslim video posted by Mark Basseley Youssef, and had Youssef arrested. The Obama administration has also targeted Fox News and conservative political organizations with criminal and IRS investigations.
• The Associated Press has a policy of not posting anything that offends Islam, but for years has posted an image of Jesus Christ in a vat of urine. On Wednesday, AP removed the Jesus in urine image out of embarrassment.

Washington Examiner and Daily Beast

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Nigeria, Baga, Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Chibok, Paul Biya, Mali, Paris, France, blasphemy, Ireland, UK, Benghazi, Mark Basseley Youssef, Associated Press
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