Boko Haram attacks police station

BOKO Haram insurgents bombed a police station in the outskirt of Maiduguri, as the Islamists pressed on with attacks despite a multinational offensive targeting their strongholds, witnesses and security sources said Thursday.

Separately, an attempted suicide attack was foiled outside a political office elsewhere in the embattled northeast, raising fears of growing unrest in the run-up to Nigeria’s general election, which has been postponed by six weeks. 

The Boko Haram uprising has raged for six years, killing more than 13,000 people, and the sect has in recent months increasingly posed a regional threat. 

Nigeria, Cameroun, Chad and Niger have since the start of this month launched an unprecedented joint effort to crush the uprising, raising hopes that this new cooperation could turn the tide.

Over two dozen suspected members of Boko Haram gunmen in a convoy of motorcycles attacked Mbuta village in Mafa Local Government Area of Borno State, and killed nine people with the torching of several houses and shops at about 7.25am Thursday.

Mbuta village is near Khaddamari; the council headquarters of Jere, and 25 kilometres northeast of Maiduguri, the state capital.

According to the village head, Mallam Zakari, in a telephone conversation Thursday in Maiduguri; “the insurgents riding motorcycles attacked Alkideow village near our village, Mbuta as early as 4.30am but failed in taking away their cows, after killing nine people, before proceeding to Mbuta village by 7.20am and torched several houses and shops.”

Scores of militants armed with guns and explosives stormed a police station in the town of Kanamma in Yobe State late Monday, multiple sources told AFP. 

Details of the violence took days to emerge because of the poor phone network in the remote area.

“The terrorists overpowered our men and set the police station on fire before kidnapping the DPO, whose body was later found in the bush,” said one senior officer, who requested anonymity. 

Several other policemen were killed, he added. 

That account was supported by Kanamma resident Maina Kachalla, who said the police station was bombed and burnt down. 

Kanamma holds significance in the history of the Boko Haram conflict. 

The group was formed in Maiduguri, the capital of neighbouring Borno state in 2002 but a hardline faction relocated to Kanamma in 2004 and attempted to form an extremist enclave in the town which they called “Afghanistan”, taking inspiration from the Taliban. 

They clashed with the military in Kanamma in January 2004 in the first known case of unrest involving the group that later become known as Boko Haram, which roughly means “Western education is forbidden”. 

The latest violence there was several hundred kilometres (miles) from the eastern edge of Borno state, the current epicentre of the multi-national offensive, which indicated that regional armies have substantial ground to cover if they hope to crush the insurgency.