"Nigerian extremists abduct 91" by Haruna Umar and Michelle Faul | Associated Press June 25, 2014
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Extremists have abducted 91 more people, including toddlers as young as 3, in weekend attacks on villages in Nigeria, witnesses said Tuesday, providing fresh evidence of the military’s failure to curb an Islamic uprising and the government’s inability to provide security.
Well, the honeymoon has been over for quite some time so....
The kidnappings come less than three months after more than 200 schoolgirls were taken in a mass abduction that embarrassed Nigeria’s government and military because of their slow response. Those girls are still being held captive.
Strange how you start asking about the missing girls and then this happens -- providing "fresh evidence."
The most recent victims included 60 girls and women, some of whom were married, and 31 boys, witnesses said.
A local official confirmed the abductions, but security forces denied them.
Here we go again!
There was no way to safely and independently confirm the report from Kummabza, 95 miles from Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and headquarters of a military state of emergency that has failed to curtail near-daily attacks by Boko Haram fighters.
Vigilante leader Aji Khalil said Tuesday that the abductions took place Saturday in an attack that killed four villagers. Khalil lives in Maiduguri but gets reports daily from other vigilante groups that have had some success in repelling Boko Haram with primitive weapons.
This propaganda is primitive!
A senior councilor from the village’s Damboa local government said abductions had occurred but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give information to reporters. He said the reports came from elderly survivors of the attack who had walked more than 15 miles to the relative safety of other villages.
An intelligence officer with Nigeria’s Department of State Security also said there had been a mass abduction, but he said it occurred in Kummabza and three nearby villages between June 13 and 15 and that no one knows the actual number abducted. He also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
This looks like it was meant to take attention off of Iraq!
There was no way to reconcile the confusion, which also surrounded the first mass abduction in mid-April.
Yeah, and we now know that was a total fraud and hoax. I'm suspecting the same here.
Several prominent Nigerians questioned whether those abductions had taken place, including first lady Patience Jonathan, who claimed the reports were fabricated to discredit her husband’s administration.
And get U.S. forces deeper involved in the region, as the people of planet earth show they are aware of all the "conspiracies."
Last week, a presidential committee investigating the April kidnappings stressed that they did happen and clarified the number of kidnapped students. It said there were 395 students at the school — 119 who escaped during the siege of the school and another 57 who escaped in the first couple of days of their abduction, leaving 219 unaccounted for.
US Representative Chris Smith met this month with one of the girls who escaped.
‘‘Almost two months later, clearly she was still traumatized — you could hear it in her quivering voice and see it in her eyes. Yet she spoke mostly of her deep concern for her friends and classmates still in captivity and pleaded for their immediate rescue,’’ he said in a statement issued Tuesday.
She's a good actor then, huh?
But Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, also quoted testimony to the House Foreign Relations Committee last week by another former US ambassador, Robin Renee Sanders, who warned that ‘‘Nigeria is in the beginning of a long war. . . . There is no easy fix.’’
A World War.
John Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria who is an analyst with the Council of Foreign Relations, predicted that kidnappings would continue because, for Boko Haram, the strategy has been ‘‘remarkably successful: It focuses attention on the shortcomings of the Nigerian government.’’
CFR says, huh?
So what did Goodluck do to turn his luck sour with the U.S.? The deal with China?
The latest abductions were the subject of speculation at a daily rally Tuesday in the capital of Abuja, an ongoing protest to keep attention on the prolonged trauma of the girls from the village of Chibok. Various speakers worried about the fate of the new victims.
Then why has my ma$$ media been ignoring them lately?
The rally to ‘‘Bring Back Our Girls’’ is organized by a group of women from all tribes, religions, and ages — an unusual display of unity in a country divided about equally between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.
Boko Haram — the nickname means ‘‘Western education is sinful’’ — wants to enforce Islamic law throughout the country of 170 million.
--more--"
Globe says Argentina suffers a goal deficit today, and you can't question their picks.
Looks like Bosnia and Iran play to a 0-0 draw.
UPDATES: Explosion rocks mall in Nigerian capital
Is it real or another agenda-driving fiction and hoax like in Kenya?
Muslim family in Nigeria forces atheist son into mental ward
The agenda-pushing demonization of Muslims in my Jewish War Daily is enough to make you crazy.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Nigeria family forces atheist son into mental ward
Globe is driving me insane.
"Explosion rocks mall in Nigerian capital" by Bashir Adigun | Associated Press June 26, 2014
ABUJA, Nigeria — An explosion blamed on Islamic extremists rocked a shopping mall in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and police said 21 people were killed.
The blast came as Nigerians were preparing to watch their country’s Super Eagles play Argentina at the World Cup in Brazil. Many shops at the mall have TV screens but it was unclear if the explosion was timed to coincide with the match, which started an hour later.
Witnesses said body parts were scattered around the exit to Emab Plaza, in Abuja’s upscale Wuse 2 suburb. One witness said he thought the bomb was dropped at the entrance to the mall by a motorcyclist. All spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Soldiers shot and killed one suspect as he tried to escape on a power bike and police detained a second suspect, Mike Omeri, the government spokesman, said in a statement.
Billows of black smoke could be seen from a mile away.
****************
It is the latest in a series of violent attacks blamed on Islamic extremists. Nigerian security forces appear incapable of curtailing the near-daily attacks concentrated in the northeast, where Boko Haram extremists have their stronghold.
On Tuesday night, extremists in the northeast attacked a military checkpoint and killed at least 21 soldiers and five civilians, witnesses and a hospital worker said Wednesday.
A soldier who escaped said the militants also abducted several of his colleagues in the attack near Damboa village, 53 miles from Maiduguri, capital of Borno state.
The extremists attacked in a convoy of more than 30 trucks armed with antiaircraft guns and rocket launchers and powerful submachine guns while the soldiers had only AK-47 assault rifles, said the soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
And yet above I'm told villagers fought them off with primitive weapons. Sorry, but I'm starting to suspect another fictionalized hoax here. Seems to be the rule regarding the propaganda pre$$ these days, rather than the exception.
He said he saw at least 16 of his colleagues gunned down before he ran away.
A worker at Maiduguri’s main hospital said he counted the corpses of 21 soldiers brought to the morgue.
A federal intelligence officer also confirmed the attack, saying the soldiers were overrun. He also is not allowed to speak to reporters.
A spokesman for vigilante groups fighting Boko Haram, Muhammed Gava, said the extremists also killed five elderly men in the village that has been deserted by most inhabitants.
Abuja is in the center of Nigeria and the militants have spread their attacks to the capital.
Two separate explosions in Abuja in April killed more than 120 people and wounded about 200 at a busy bus station. Both were claimed by Boko Haram, which has threatened further attacks.
A bomb at a medical college in northern Kano killed at least eight people on Monday.
Last week, at least 14 died in a bomb blast at a World Cup viewing site in Damaturu, a state capital in the northeast. In May, twin car bombs in the central city of Jos left more than 130 people dead and a car bomb at a bus station killed 24 people in the Christian quarter of Kano, a Muslim city.
That left them an empty net with which to catch the false-flagging terrorist group.
Boko Haram attracted international condemnation for the April mass abductions of more than 200 schoolgirls, and is blamed for this week’s abductions of another 91 people — 31 boys and 60 girls and women with toddlers as young as 3.
If at first a log of propaganda doesn't work, crap out another.
Nigeria’s military and government claim to be winning the war in the five-year-old insurgency but the tempo and deadliness of attacks have increased this year, killing more than 2,000 people so far compared to an estimated 3,600 killed over the past four years.
I certainly recognize that feeling regarding the phrases and words highlighted there.
--more--"
Also see: Museum of Fine Arts returns 8 artifacts to Nigeria
Lionel Messi lifts Argentina over Nigeria
Oh, yeah, the soccer match. That's where I heard breaking news of the mall attack. Stuff is even bleeding over into the sports now.
