Boko Haram recapture city in Nigeria’s north

The Nigerian military has struggled to stamp out the highly mobile, combat-hardened fighters of Boko Haram, who want to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria [Xinhua]

The extremist Islamist militant group Boko Haram has recaptured Marte, a vital city in the war-torn northern Nigerian state of Borno, in what is the first serious setback for the country’s military.

Borno State Deputy Governor Alhaji Zannah Umar Mustapha said that Boko Haram had used improvised explosive devices and petrol bombs before running Nigerian military positions in Marte.

He said that the recapture of Marte allowed Boko Haram fighters to seize other villages and towns they had lost to the military in January and February of this year.

On Friday and Saturday, Boko Haram also attacked villages on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, which they had unsuccessfully tried to take a number of times this year.

The renewed Boko Haram offensives in Borno came in tandem with a suicide bomb attack which killed at least seven and injured 27 in Damaturu, capital of neighboring Yobe State.

Police said the suicide bomber was believed to have been a 10-year-old child.

The Nigerian military’s successful defense of the city has proven to be a morale booster for its troops at a time when other African nations have combined forces to deal with the Boko Haram threat.

Boko Haram, which controls large swathes of northeastern Nigeria, has come under repeated attacks from the Nigerian, Chadian and Cameroonian armies in recent weeks.

Although African nations have launched a combined military effort, sanctioned by the African Union and supported in part by Washington, to destroy the militant group, Boko Haram still retains significant offensive capabilities to strike at towns in Borno.

Meanwhile, the US has increased its assistance to African nations fighting Boko Haram. According to media reports, Washington dispatched military hardware to Cameroon, which has been the target of Boko Haram’s cross border raids.

In March, the Boko Haram leadership announced it had declared allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS).

The BRICS POST with inputs from Agencies