Tuesday, May 7, 2013

PHOTOGALLERY OF BAMA PRISON BREAK .. WHERE ARE YOU SEN MAINA MAAJI LAWAN TO COUNT THE BODY BAGS? : Nigerian Islamist Raid in Northeast Town of Bama in Borno State Kills 55, Frees 105 In Borno - military

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns killed at least 55 people as Islamist sect Boko Haram raided the north-eastern town of Bama on Tuesday, freeing 105 prisoners in the pre-dawn raid, in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, authorities said Tuesday, the latest in a string of increasingly bloody attacks threatening peace in Africa's most populous nation.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Gunmen freed 105 prison members during the raid which began at around 5 a.m. (5:00 a.m. British time) and lasted almost five hours, Musa said. Bama's police station, military barracks and government buildings were burned to the ground, a Reuters witness saw.

The attack struck multiple locations in the hard-hit town of Bama in Nigeria's Borno state, where shootings and bombings have continued unstopped since an insurgency began there in 2010. Fighters raided a federal prison during their assault as well, freeing 105 inmates in another mass prison break to hit the country, officials said.

What exactly happened in the attack remains unclear, though military spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria's beleaguered army. Musa said two soldiers died in the attack, while some 10 insurgents died. However, the military routinely downplays their casualties in such assaults.

"They came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers but were able to detect them," Musa said.

The attackers struck the federal prison, killing 22 police officers, 14 prison officials, two soldiers and four civilians, while 13 of the group's own members died, military spokesman Sagir Musa told Reuters. They also attacked and razed a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate's court and local government offices, the lieutenant colonel said.

At least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in those attacks, said Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar. He said officers killed three insurgents in the fighting.  Bama is a small, remote town in north-eastern Borno state, where Boko Haram first launched an uprising in 2009.

Correspondents say extremist attacks are common in the region but the scale of bloodshed makes this raid stand out.  Tuesday's raid in the remote town went on for several hours, the military spokesman said.  Bama's police station, military barracks and government buildings were burned to the ground, a witness told news agency Reuters.

Calls rang unanswered or couldn't connect Tuesday night to those living in Bama, a town 65 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.  Repeated attacks by Islamic extremists have seen mobile phone towers bombed and burned to the ground there, making communication even more difficult for security officials and civilians as well in the region. At least 17 people died in an attack in Bama in late April alone.

Much of the violence has been blamed on the extremist network known as Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north. That group has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

While President Goodluck Jonathan has started a committee to look at the idea of offering an amnesty deal to extremist fighters, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, has dismissed the idea in messages.

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group's leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed more than 1,500 people, according to an Associated Press count.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation's weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, violent atrocities committed by security forces against the local civilian population only fuels rage in the region.

In late April, at least 187 people were killed in fighting between Islamic extremists and the military in Baga, another city in Borno state that sits along the banks of Lake Chad. Witnesses say soldiers angry about the death of a military officer set fire to homes there and killed civilians.

Human Rights Watch recently said an analysis of satellite imagery before and after the attack led them to believe the violence destroyed some 2,275 buildings and severely damaged another 125.

Boko Haram, as it is popularly known, has its roots in this region of Nigeria. The sect and offshoots such as the al Qaeda-linked Ansaru, as well as associated criminal networks, pose the main threat to stability in Africa's top energy producer. It is fighting to overthrow the government and set up an Islamic state.

Boko Haram wants to carve out an Islamic state in a country split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims. One of its chief demands is that its imprisoned members and family members are released and it has carried out several prison breaks.

Western governments are increasingly concerned about Nigerian militants linking up with other jihadist groups in the West African region. Violence in Nigeria's north has shown no signs of letting up. Clashes between Islamists and a multinational force from Nigeria, Niger and Chad killed dozens of people last month.

A senator who visited the site said 228 people were killed, but the military puts the figure at 37.


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