The Islamic extremist group Boko Haram reportedly is working on a new offensive campaign of terror using young children to bomb “soft targets”: markets, restaurants and worship centers.
Mike Omeri of the Nigeria National Information Center told reporters that intelligence reports finding credible plans from the group for attacks on citizens in places most people previously considered off limits by the terrorists.
Available intelligence reports indicate a plan by Boko Haram to use young suicide bombers disguised as cobblers to hide explosives in their tool boxes and detonate them on soft target areas such as markets, restaurants, ATM locations, political rallies, and worship centers,” Omeri said.
“Also, there is indication of a plan by this group to use livestock such as goats, cows, donkeys and camels laden with explosives to attack chosen targets,” Omeri added. “In view of these, people who rear goats and cows in the centre are advised in their own interest to restrict such movements because actions could be taken, and nobody should blame the police and other security agencies for taking the necessary steps.”
The announcement comes as Boko Haram released a video on social media showing a training camp for child soldiers.
Muslim extremists murdered a popular Nigerian pastor who is being remembered as a “dedicated servant to the poor.”
Pastor Joshua Adah, who founded and operated a school giving free education to over 400 children in Bantaje, was slaughtered by a group of Muslim herdsmen who may be connected to the terrorist group Boko Haram.
The attackers reportedly seized Adah after his car broke down while on the way back to the mission from an outreach event.
“The pastor’s car broke down at Chediya on his return from Koji. He then phoned his mechanic at Jalingo to help him fix the car. When the mechanic arrived, the two men agreed to hire a vehicle nearby Dan Anacha, which would tow the car to Jalingo,” a police spokesman said. “The mechanic upon returning to scene could not find the pastor. … After a thorough search, his body was found in the area.”
A supporter of Pastor Adah said after finding Christ in 2000 he experienced a radical life transformation.
“Not too long after he got born again, he left the comfort and ‘luxury’ of city life for a remote village on a hill without light nor potable drinking water, not even a well in sight,” the supporter explained. “He was there with his humble wife and kids to answer the call of God at this time when larger cities meant greener pastures, fatter offerings and sizeable tithes to others doing ministry. He continued to preach the Gospel and hold campaigns, not in the urban areas but mostly in rural areas.
“I don’t know why God allowed Boko Haram to cut his life short. Even when it became dangerous, he refused to get out but kept preaching Christ in villages where many will not go,” she added .
Residents of Adamawa state, Nigeria, say that terrorists are rampaging through the region without any Nigerian Army troops in the area to stop their rampage.
Adamawa state legislator Adamu Kamale asys that over 40 people have been killed in seven villages as Boko Haram has burned down homes and businesses and even mosques.
“They don’t spare anything: they slaughtered people like rams and they burned down our houses after looting food,” Kwache said. “There’s no presence of troops, some residents are hiding on top of hills, while those that could not run were abducted, particularly youths and women.”
Kamale says he’s been begging the government to send troops into the region but has been refused on all requests.
The terrorists are moving on the city of Maidguri with over 2 million residents. Boko Haram released a statement yesterday telling the government they plan to turn the city into a “big grave” and there “will be no mercy” for residents.
Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has made a major advance in their attempt to take over Nigeria.
The terrorists captured the city of Monguno over the weekend, leaving over 200 people dead following an intense battle with military forces. The terror group is now attempting to drive the military out of the town of Maiduguri.
“Our soldiers initially repelled the terrorists but they mobilized more fighters and came back in full force. They overwhelmed our troops and forced them to retreat,” said one Nigerian officer to the Associated Press.
Monguno is a city of 100,000 residents. Maiduguri has over 600,000.
The terrorist group has reportedly been reinforced with Islamic extremists from other nations after formally linking to terrorist group ISIS. Fighters from Chad and Cameroon have been found as part of the Boko Haram network.
“So long as we have the resources, we will continue to regard the efforts to reclaim peace our No. 1 area of commitments. I want to reassure the good people of Borno state that we will never abdicate from our responsibility as those they entrusted with leadership,” Borno Governor Kashim Shettima said while admitting the terrorist group is becoming too hard for his local police to fight.
Muslims in Niger attacked Christians, burning their homes and churches over the weekend, in retaliation for the French magazine Charlie Hebdo publishing a cartoon of Muhammad.
The International Christian Concern reported missionaries in the capital city of Naimey said all of their churches have been burned to the ground along with the homes of every pastor in the city. Some of the missionaries’ homes are among those destroyed by the mobs.
However, the missionaries reported that while smoke is “around all of side our house”, they are going to remain in Niger to speak the truth of Christ.
The protests apparently began at the grand mosque in the city and the mob then began their attack on Christians.
“I just rushed and told my colleagues in the church to take away their families from the place,” Pastor Zakaria Jadi said. “I took my family to take them out from the place. When I came back I just discovered that everything has gone. There’s nothing in my house and also in the church.”
Boko Haram’s leader was born in Niger and is believed to continue to have strong contacts in the country.
Survivors of the Boko Haram conducted massacre in northern Nigeria last week are starting to arrive in the southern part of the country and are sharing horrific stories.
Witnesses say that a pregnant woman who was in the middle of delivering a baby boy was killed by the terrorists. The survivors say that women and children were killed indiscriminately by the terrorists who never stopped to ask if the people were Muslim or of other faiths.
“They killed so many people. I saw maybe around 100 killed at that time in Baga. I ran to the bush. As we were running, they were shooting and killing,” one witness said.
Amnesty International has released satellite photos of the region showing the devastation left in the wake of the terrorists. Actual ground footage has been unavailable as the Islamists still control the area.
“These detailed images show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns, one of which was almost wiped off the map in the space of four days,” Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International, told the Christian Post.
“Of all Boko Haram assaults analyzed by Amnesty International, this is the largest and most destructive yet. It represents a deliberate attack on civilians whose homes, clinics and schools are now burnt out ruins.”
“The numbers are adding up fast and it is becoming clearer and clearer that the Nigerian governments, both federal and states, are failing resoundingly in their responsibility to protect innocent lives and prevent this mass atrocities from going forward. These atrocities are increasingly becoming worse and worse as the times go by,” said Pastor Laolu Akande, the executive director of the Christian Association of Nigerian Americans.
Boko Haram terrorists attacked the city of Baga and its surrounding villages and over 2,000 are reportedly dead from the assault.
“I received a message of the Christians Association of Nigeria, the association of Christian churches in Nigeria, which states that in that area Boko Haram has burned several churches and caused numerous victims” said Fr. Patrick Tor Alumuku, director of social communications of the Archdiocese of Abuja.
The attack from the terrorists started with a full assault on the military base in Baga. Once the terrorists captured the base, they began to kill anyone who was fleeing the villages into the bush.
The slaughter was so significant that bodies are still laying in the streets because there are not enough people to bury them all.
“I escaped with my family in the car after seeing how Boko Haram was killing people … I saw bodies in the street. Children and women, some were crying for help,” Mohamed Bukar told Reuters.
Nigerian military officials say that jihadists from Libya and Mali have come to the country to reinforce the terrorist group.
The latest terror attack by Islamic extremists in Nigeria happened Thursday morning in the city of Gombe.
Local officials say a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the ECWA church.
“There was an explosion outside the ECWA church this morning. A suicide bomber who was restrained from getting into the church blew himself up,” Abubakar Yakubu, the head of the Nigeria Red Cross in Gombe, told the Christian Post. “Luckily no one was killed but some people were mildly injured.”
Witnesses say that the bomber arrived on a motorcycle and was furious when he was not permitted to drive past a security checkpoint that had been established by church members. The church had built the barricade as a defense against Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
The bomber had explosives strapped to his body that detonated while he was yelling at church members who had blocked his way.
The attack was the second bombing in Gombe on Thursday. A female bomber was blown up outside a military barracks when a soldier shot the explosives strapped to her body.
A 13-year-old girl who escaped the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram says her father sold her into slavery with the group.
The girl, whose identity is being withheld by authorities, said that she was being ordered to become a suicide bomber. The information from the girl coincides with a rise in terrorist attacks by young girls and women wearing bomb vests. Officials are concerned that the terrorists are forcing captive women to commit attacks.
The girl said her captors told her the only way to get into paradise would be to let them use her as a homicide bomber.
“When I was told I would have to die to enter paradise, that I would have to explode a bomb and die, I said I cannot do it,” she said. She eventually allowed them to strap a bomb vest on her after she noticed they were burying alive members of the group and girls who would not follow through with terror attacks.
“I was afraid to be buried alive,” she told reporters.
The girl was initially arrested at a hospital after she arrived with a leg wound. She told a taxi driver to take her a hospital and she left the bomb vest in the back seat of the taxi. Officials say they will keep her in protective custody while the investigation continues.
She says her father is now a full member of Boko Haram.
Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has killed 11 people and kidnapped at least 20 women as they continue to expand what they call their “caliphate.”
The group says that the predominantly Christian town of Lassa is now under their control.
“As it is now, Boko Haram is fully in charge in Lassa town and has declared the town a caliphate,” one of the escapees from Lassa told Morning Star News. He declined to give his name, saying, “It is no longer safe for us to tell you our names, as doing so may pose a serious threat not only to us but also our relations who are still being held captive by Boko Haram members.”
The terrorists have also declared Chibok and Shani as part of their “caliphate.”
Samuel Dali, president of the EYN in Nigeria, who also has been displaced by the Boko Haram attacks, confirmed the attacks on the three Christian towns, saying many of his church members have been displaced.
