Members of the Nigeria Joint Task Force say they have killed a Boko Haram commander and 30 members of the organization. Nigeria has been hit by sectional conflict in the last three years., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Gunmen in military, police uniforms kill 31 in Borno
MONDAY, 12 AUGUST 2013 00:00 FROM NJADVARA MUSA, MAIDUGURI
Nigerian Guardian
• JTF takes 26 to hospital
• Shekau vows to fight govt, infidels
• Says Boko Haram must turn Nigeria into Islamic state
NO single shot was fired. Yet, after the invaders left three Borno communities, 31 people were found killed.
The throats of the victims were allegedly slit, thus not attracting the attention of security operatives of the Joint Task Force (JTF).
Some sources linked the attacks in homes and mosques on Saturday and Sunday to Boko Haram’s members.
The attacked villages are Ngom (on the Dikwa/Gamborou Road) and Mandarari and Malari (along the Maiduguri-Bama Road.)
Meanwhile, the Boko Haram leader, Sheikh Abubakar Shekau, on Monday vowed to fight infidels and the Federal Government until an Islamic country is established, as directed by Allah in the Quran.
The claims of the JTF and the police on the killings and destruction of Boko Haram members and their training bases, according to Shekau, are false and misleading the public.
Shekau spoke on Monday on a video e-mailed to reporters in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
His words: “The Federal Government along with its soldiers and policemen are lying against our members, because the killings and destruction of our arms and ammunition are not true, as being claimed by the military authorities in Abuja and other places. We are the ones that seized the arms and ammunition from soldiers and policemen. And this is why we will continue to fight the infidels and all other individuals or groups that go against our mission and objectives of establishing an Islamic state.”
Shekau also claimed responsibilities for the attacks and killings at Gambouru, Bama, Baga, Gwoza, Mallam Fatori and Monguno in Borno State, and recently, in Mamudu of Yobe State.
He said that because of the superiority of Boko Haram at the various battlefields in Borno and Yobe states, many soldiers and policemen were dispossessed of their arms and ammunition; and forced to run for their lives.
He, however, noted that the group does not kill children, women, old men and women, and mad people.
He said that Boko Haram was not only fighting the cause of Islam in Nigeria, but the leaders of United States (U.S.), Germany, France and all other countries in the world that do not rule according to the teachings of Quran.
JTF’s sources said in Maiduguri that 12 people at Ngom and 19 others were killed in the early hours of Sunday.
A resident of Malari (names withheld) said: “We saw gunmen in military and police uniforms with some vehicles and motorcycles at dawn. They proceeded to our village on the Maiduguri-Bama Road, chanting ‘God is great’ in Arabic when the gunmen started to kill some of us here in this village, one by one, until 11 villagers were slain by slitting their throats.
“The following day at Mandarari, a different set of Boko Haram gunmen invaded the village in the early hours of Sunday, and killed eight more people, while they were praying in two mosques at dawn, before soldiers rushed to the village at about 8.00 a.m.”
On Ngom’s casualties, the JTF’s source said: “I cannot tell you the details of attacks, but it was certain that gunmen in military and police uniforms attacked Ngom village, 20 kilometres east of Maiduguri, the state capital. The incidents occurred in the early hours of Saturday before we were alerted to them.
“Before we reached the village, the gunmen had fled in their vehicles and motorcycles. But the village head told us that 12 of his people were killed by first tying their hands to their backs, before slitting their throats.”
The closed Bama and Dambo roads, he added, would remain shut to motorists, until security improved.
A villager, who fled to Maiduguri at the Muna Motor Park yesterday, told The Guardian that the Boko Haram gunmen accused the people of Ngom of conniving with members of the Borno Vigilance Youths Group (BVYG) to “hunt and arrest” members of the terror group in the last three months.
Confirming the separate incidents yesterday in Maiduguri, the spokesman of Borno Police Command, Gideon Jibrin, said that three villages were attacked by armed hoodlums, killing no fewer than 31 people on Saturday and Sunday. He said no arrest had been made by either the JTF or the police.
Meanwhile, the authorities of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) say 26 injured people were brought to its Accident and Emergency Unit (A&EU) by the JTF and police in three vehicles.
The admitted people, according to an attendant at the A&EU, sustained various degrees of injuries in Sunday’s attacks at Konduga, 40 kilometres east of Maiduguri.
He said out of the 26 injured persons, 16 had fractures in their limbs, while the remaining ones had knife cuts and fire burns on their skins, as some of their houses were set ablaze by suspected Boko Haram gunmen.
He added: “We did not receive bodies of people killed in the Boko Haram attacks at Konduga and the three other villages at the weekend because our morgue has already filled up with bodies. We had advised the soldiers and policemen to carry the bodies to the Specialist Hospital, Maiduguri, for deposition and identification.”
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