Boko Haram insurgents have overrun much of a northeastern
Nigerian town after hours of fighting that has killed scores and
displaced thousands of residents, several security sources said on
Tuesday.
The Islamists launched an attack on the town of Bama, 70 km (45
miles) from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, on Monday. They
were initially repelled but came back in greater numbers overnight,
the sources and witnesses said.
Nigeria’s defence spokesman did not
comment. There were heavy casualties on both sides.
One security source said as many as 5,000 people fled.
Two months after Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria declared the
area they seized an Islamic caliphate, Boko Haram has also for the
first time explicitly laid claim to territory it says it controls in parts
of northeast Nigeria.
It captured the remote hilly farming town of Gwoza, along the
Cameroon border, during fighting last month. The group’s leader
Abubakar Shekau in a video declared it a “Muslim territory” that
would be ruled by strict Islamic law.
Shekau’s forces have killed thousands since launching an uprising in
2009 to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria.
“When we started hearing gunshots, everybody was confused. There
was firing form different directions. We just ran to the outskirts of
town,” Bukar Auwalu, a trader who fled with his wife, three children
and brother, told Reuters by phone.
“There were military helicopters and a fighter jet. We slept in the
bush on the outskirts of town.”
Nigerian town after hours of fighting that has killed scores and
displaced thousands of residents, several security sources said on
Tuesday.
The Islamists launched an attack on the town of Bama, 70 km (45
miles) from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, on Monday. They
were initially repelled but came back in greater numbers overnight,
the sources and witnesses said.
Nigeria’s defence spokesman did not
comment. There were heavy casualties on both sides.
One security source said as many as 5,000 people fled.
Two months after Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria declared the
area they seized an Islamic caliphate, Boko Haram has also for the
first time explicitly laid claim to territory it says it controls in parts
of northeast Nigeria.
It captured the remote hilly farming town of Gwoza, along the
Cameroon border, during fighting last month. The group’s leader
Abubakar Shekau in a video declared it a “Muslim territory” that
would be ruled by strict Islamic law.
Shekau’s forces have killed thousands since launching an uprising in
2009 to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria.
“When we started hearing gunshots, everybody was confused. There
was firing form different directions. We just ran to the outskirts of
town,” Bukar Auwalu, a trader who fled with his wife, three children
and brother, told Reuters by phone.
“There were military helicopters and a fighter jet. We slept in the
bush on the outskirts of town.”
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