UK to aid in 'Nigerian rescue'

From:

http://news.sky.com/story/1265580/nigerian-twin-bombings-claim-118-lives

Nigerian Twin Bombings Claim 118 Lives
Explosions in the Nigerian city of Jos leave 118 people dead - with extremist group Boko Haram the prime suspects.

The number of people killed in a twin bombing in the Nigerian city of Jos has risen to at least 118.

Police in the state of Plateau said dozens more were injured in the explosions at a bus terminal and market.

Earlier reports had said 10 people had died. There are fears more bodies will be recovered from the wreckage of burning buildings.

One witness described hearing a "loud bang that shook my whole house" before seeing rising smoke. The blasts happened within 15 minutes of each other in the afternoon.

The country's president, Goodluck Jonathan, said those behind the explosions were "cruel and evil".

He said: "The government remains fully committed to winning the war against terror, and this administration will not be cowed by the atrocities of enemies of human progress and civilisation."

The Islamist sect Boko Haram is believed to be a prime suspect, although there was no immediate claim of responsibility. The group's insurgency has seen a series of bomb attacks in the north and centre of the country.

It has been widely condemned for the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a village in the northeast of the country, which has prompted countries including the UK and the US to offer assistance in rescuing them.

The group previously said it was behind a church bombing in Jos, and two other sites, on December 25, 2011.

Jos is in an area known as the "Middle Belt", where the largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north meet.

Five people were killed when a suicide bomber struck in the northern city of Kano on Sunday.

Thank you Bonny. What a terrible situation.

http://news.sky.com/story/1266394/us-sends-troops-to-chad-to-find-missing-girls

US Sends Troops To Chad To Find Missing Girls

President Obama says the service personnel will help find students abducted last month by Islamists Boko Haram in Nigeria.

By Sky News US Team
The US has sent 80 military personnel to Chad to help find more than 200 girls kidnapped in neighbouring Nigeria, President Barack Obama has said.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and to Senate lawmakers, the president confirmed the deployment to help trace the students abducted last month by Islamist militants Boko Haram.

"These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area," Mr Obama wrote in the letter.

"The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required."

The letter was sent to comply with the requirement to notify Congress within 48 hours of US troop commitments under the War Powers Resolution.

Mr Obama has faced criticism on Capitol Hill from lawmakers who have urged him to do more to help find the missing girls.

The team, who will be made up mostly of Air Force personnel, is due to arrive on Wednesday and may already be there, according to Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Myles Caggins.

They will operate unmanned, unarmed drones flying out of an airstrip in Chad, he added.

The US last week deployed a smaller team of military, law enforcement, and hostage negotiation advisers to the Nigerian capital of Abuja to help find the girls.

A Pentagon spokesman on Tuesday compared the search to finding "a needle in a jungle".

Rear Adm John Kirby said: "We’re talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it's dense forest jungle."

Boko Haram's leader has threatened to sell most of the schoolgirls into slavery if the government does not release detained militants.

The mayhem meanwhile continues in Nigeria where Boko Haram was blamed for gun attacks on Tuesday night that killed nearly 50 people in three villages in the northeast of the country.

Those assaults come a day after 118 people were killed when two car bombs exploded at a market and bus terminal in the central city of Jos.


Another omnishambles in the making.

Totally, Bonny.   

The French and UK military have been in these ghastly places for generations, Lily, the US hasn't. I doubt if they have any idea what they are getting into.

No they won't. They have not had the experience that Europeans have, for instance.

I would also think Obama's made the scumbags very happy, even happier than when they saw Mrs O. waving that stupid sign.

Lure US soldiers into that Godforsaken region, where they will have little idea what they're doing? It's terrorist heaven.

I hope it ends well, but I doubt it very much.

 

Nigeria's military knows where the more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram are but has ruled out using force to rescue them, the state news agency quoted Chief of Defence Staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh as saying on Monday.
'The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are, but we cannot tell you,' Badeh was quoted as saying.
'But where they are held, can we go there with force? We can't kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2639874/BREAKING-NEWS-Nigerian-military-say-know-200-abdicuted-girls-not-risk-killing-girls-launching-rescue-attempt.html#ixzz32w8tLcPg
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Amazing, someone's said something sensible.

Thank goodness for that. Those girls must be petrified.

Not good news:

Boko Haram Attacks Kill Dozens In Nigeria
Militants arrive on pickup trucks and fire RPGs at two bases in a town where 59 students were killed in an attack in February.

Boko Haram militants have killed dozens of members of the security forces in two attacks in northern Nigeria, officials have said.

Reuters said that gunmen from the extremist Islamic group attacked a Nigerian military base and adjacent police barracks simultaneously in the northeastern town of Buni Yadi.

The exact number of deaths is unclear, with one group of officials saying it is 54 and security sources saying at least 31.

It comes as pressure mounts on Nigeria to free more than 200 schoolgirls held captive by Boko Haram, after the military ruled out an armed rescue operation.

The Nigerian military claims it knows where the girls are, but says it is too dangerous to rescue them. In the past, Nigerian militants have killed those they are holding during rescue operations.

The US State Department on Tuesday evening (UK time) said it did not have information which could "support Nigeria's claim it has located the kidnapped girls".

A witness and resident of Buni Yadi, who identified himself only as Mustafa, said the militants in the latest attack arrived in an armoured personnel carrier and six Toyota Hilux pickup trucks.

They dismounted and fired into the air before launching rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) at both bases.

More at:

http://news.sky.com/story/1270130/boko-haram-attacks-kill-dozens-in-nigeria

rescue them all safe and sound.

Let's hope it can be done, Pedro.

yes bb1, I agree with you, I wouldn´t mind to trade political prisoners for the safe return of the girls.

the safety of the girls with their safe return, above all.

No question about that pedro.

yes lily, I agree with you.

OMG.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/05/world/africa/boko-haram-village-raids/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Kano, Nigeria (CNN) -- Hundreds of people were killed in raids by Boko Haram Islamic militants in northeast Nigeria's Borno state, on the border with Cameroon, with some sources putting the death toll at 400 to 500.
On Tuesday, heavily armed men dressed as soldiers in all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles attacked neighboring Goshe, Attagara, Agapalwa and Aganjara villages in Gwoza district, shooting residents to death and burning homes.
The attacks forced surviving villagers to flee to Cameroon and into the Mandara Mountains on the border.
"The killings are massive. Nobody can say how many people were killed, but the figure runs into some hundreds," said Peter Biye, a lawmaker in Nigeria's lower parliament representing the Gwoza region.

"The a

rea is still under the control of the insurgents, and residents can't go back to bury the dead because of the danger involved," he said.
On Wednesday, a military jet bombarded Boko Haram positions to dislodge the militants from the villages they have occupied, forcing them to temporarily withdraw.
"They returned immediately after the jet left, making it too risky for villagers to return to bury the dead," Biye said.
Dead bodies litter the area around the attacked villages. Ground troops have yet to go to the area to push out the insurgents, he said.
The attackers, who posed as soldiers, told residents they had come to protect them from Boko Haram and asked them to assemble. They singled out men and boys and opened fire on them, Biye said.
A local leader in Attagara village, who fled to nearby Madagali town in neighboring Adamawa state, said the death toll was staggering.

"The death is unimaginable. We have lost between 400 and 500 people in the attacks in which men and male children were not spared," said the local leader, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

"The gunmen pursued on motorcycle people who fled into the bush in a bid to escape and shot them dead.
"Even nursing mothers had their male infants snatched from their backs and shot dead before their eyes," the local leader said.
The insurgents destroyed mobile phone towers in the region, so news of attacks is usually slow to emerge and verification of death tolls difficult to obtain.
If the death toll is confirmed, it will be the worst attack by Boko Haram in its five-year insurgency that has killed thousands, mostly in the northeast.
On May 5, the group killed 315 people in the town of Gamboru Ngala on the border with Cameroon not far from Gwoza, where they burned a market, businesses and several homes.
Meanwhile, dozens of Boko Haram fighters stormed Madagali town early Thursday, burning a church and a local government administrative building after subduing military and police personnel, a local official said.
Residents said two civilians were killed in crossfire during a shootout between soldiers and the gunmen.

"They came around 6 a.m. ... in 10 all-terrain vehicles and on several motorcycles, all dressed in military uniforms," said Maina Ularamu, a Madagali local government chairman.
The gunmen overran a police checkpoint, forcing policemen to flee, and then opened fire on a military checkpoint just outside the town, where they engaged soldiers in a shootout.
After overwhelming the soldiers who withdrew from the checkpoint, the gunmen attacked and burned a Roman Catholic church and a local government office opposite it, Ularamu said.

  That is terrible. OMG   

There was a segment on Austrain TV a couple of days ago about Boko Haram. The interviewee was once a member of Boko Haaram and is living in exile after he defected when the original leader was killed. This new leader has a bloodlust, a need to spill Christian blood that the other leader did not have. The interviewee said the original intention of the gang was to make North Nigeria a Muslim Sharia state and to expel Christians to the south. But now the bloodlust of the present leader seems to have infected his followerfs and they now see the total annihilation of anyone who iks not Muslim is the whole and only intention. Unless somehow the military can wipe out the entire terrorists this will continue. LL

Thanks, LL, sadly, that makes a horrible sort of sense.

I agree but such a horrendous state of affairs.

Christians, Muslims, Jews and animistists, ie the original religions of the country, have lived side by side for eons. But then camer 9/11 and like so many other countries, the stable secure lives of the inhabitants were changed and fanatuism and religious hatred became the norm. It is happening in so many places, Buddhists monkes chopping up Christian children, the Sudanese north, mulsin, is trying to wipe out the south, christian. LL

http://news.sky.com/story/1288311/nigeria-militants-kidnap-more-boys-and-girls

Nigeria Militants 'Kidnap More Boys And Girls'
Boko Haram fighters are accused of abducting more villagers during a series of deadly attacks in the country's northwest.

Suspected Boko Haram militants have abducted 31 boys and 60 girls and women in northwest Nigeria, it has been claimed.

Four local residents were reportedly killed when the Islamic extremists took the hostages in several attacks in Borno state.

Aji Khalil, from a local anti-Boko Haram vigilante group in Kummabza, said the kidnappings took place there on Saturday.

Nigeria's defence headquarters in the capital, Abuja, said in a tweet that it had "yet to confirm the several reports on the abduction of girls in Borno as at now".

The Nigerian government and military have widely criticised for their slow response to Boko Haram's abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in April and kidnappings since then.

Boko Haram has been demanding the release of its detained members in exchange for hostages, but Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has said he will not consider a swap.

More follows...

Looks like the terrorists were really, really scared by the tw@tters and their hashtag campaign.