Boko Haram kills 24 in two separate attacks
Maiduguri - Suspected Boko Haram militants killed 24 people in
two separate attacks, eyewitnesses said on Saturday, just as the
military vowed to ramp up security over Christmas.
Seven fishermen
were ambushed and killed in the first attack in Baga, a fishing
community on Lake Chad in Borno state, one of three in the northeast of
the country under emergency rule since May this year.
Seventeen
people died in a separate attack on Thursday, other eyewitnesses said,
when gunmen in pick-up trucks torched more than 100 shops and vehicles
in the Sabon Gari area of the Damboa district, 90 kilometres (56 miles)
from the state capital, Maiduguri.
There was no immediate confirmation of either attack from the military or local authorities.
"They
killed seven fishermen, injured 15 others and burnt some local boats
and nets used for catching fish," fisherman Ibrahim Gambo said in
Maiduguri, where he had brought his brother for treatment.
"It was
a reprisal by insurgents because the soldiers have two weeks ago
clamped down on them," added another fisherman, Sheriff Bababa.
"They (the military) even arrested some of their members, including a leader, with the assistance of youth vigilantes."
Human
Rights Watch on Friday said Boko Haram fighters were carrying out
reprisals on civilians in retaliation for intelligence on supposed
militant activity passed to the military by civilian vigilante groups.
It
urged the militants to stop targeting civilians and the vigilantes to
stop using minors in counter-intelligence and security operations.
In
Sabon Garin, villagers told reporters that the attack happened at about
11:35 pm (2235 GMT) on Thursday and those responsible were chanting
"Allahu Akbar" (God is great) as they arrived.
The violence lasted until about 4:00 am, they added.
News
of the attacks, which are often slow to emerge because of a
communications black-out in Borno designed to disrupt militant planning,
came as the military pledged to step up security in vulnerable border
areas.
Boko Haram, which wants to impose a strict form of Islamic
law or sharia on Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, has previously
launched deadly attacks on and around the Christian festival.
A wave of attacks against churches and police on December 25, 2011, left 49 people dead.
Nearly
200 people, including soldiers, insurgents and scores of civilians,
were killed in fierce fighting between troops and Islamist insurgents in
Baga in April this year.
Area army spokesman Colonel Mohammed
Dole said troops had been deployed to frontier villages and towns in
Borno state that have been targeted while suspected Boko Haram bases
were being cleared, backed by air support.
"We have identified
their hideouts and we are determined to make all the border communities
and the state generally free of Boko Haram activities so that people can
move freely and celebrate the Yuletide peacefully," he added.
Borno
state deputy governor Zanna Umar Mustapha has said the military would
now set up permanent bases in trouble spots, which have shifted from
urban centres to the countryside as a result of emergency rule.
National
army spokesman Brigadier General Ibrahim Attahiru meanwhile said that
Nigeria was seeking regional help from its neighbours to help put down
the insurgency.
