Related: Tanking This Pakistan Post
Over two weeks into the offensive and this is the first article I have seen in my Boston Globes:
"Pakistani Forces Attack Militant Bases in Remote North" New York Times Syndicate July 17, 2014
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistani fighter jets killed at least 35 people in attacks on militant bases in a remote part of the North Waziristan tribal district, the military said Wednesday, hours after local residents reported that a US drone strike in the same area had killed an additional 20 people.
A Pakistani intelligence official said that fighter jets carried out airstrikes in the Shawal Valley, a remote forested area that has become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, and in several nearby districts.
The strikes targeted fighters who had fled Miram Shah and Mir Ali, two towns in the region that were largely abandoned by civilians and militants shortly after the start of the offensive on June 15.
“It’s a mixed bag of local and foreign militants,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Hours earlier, residents said, a US drone fired four missiles at a compound and a vehicle in Zoi Saidgai, about 30 miles west of Miram Shah and close to the Afghan border. Speaking by phone, residents said that 20 people were killed in the strike, including 12 foreigners and eight local militants.
Related: The Drone Wars: Pakistan
The area where the strike occurred is controlled by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a pro-Taliban militant commander who avoided attack for several years under an agreement with the military, but whose forces have been hit by fighter jets in recent days as Pakistan ground troops move toward Datta Khel, a center of militant activity in North Waziristan.
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Apparently they have yet to deploy ground troops.
"Pakistani teen seeks release of Nigerian girls" by Lekan Oyekanmi | Associated Press July 15, 2014
ABUJA, Nigeria — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen who survived a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012, marked her 17th birthday Monday with a visit to Nigeria and urged Islamic extremists to free the 219 schoolgirls who were kidnapped three months ago, calling them her ‘‘sisters.’’
Yousafzai, an international symbol for women’s rights in the face of hard-line Islam, said Nigeria’s president promised to meet for the first time with the abducted girls’ parents.
See: Nobel Peace Prize Purely Political
‘‘My birthday wish this year is ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ now and alive,’’ she said, using the social media slogan that has been picked up around the world to demand freedom for the girls, abducted by the group Boko Haram from a school in the remote town of Chibok.
She she has decided to go along with the staged and scripted fraud and hoax?
Notice how quickly the urgency of the situation dissolved once US troops and drones were placed in the region? Mission accomplished!
Yousafzai appealed directly to their captors: ‘‘Lay down your weapons. Release your sisters. Release my sisters. Release the daughters of this nation. Let them be free. They have committed no crime.’’
She added: ‘‘You are misusing the name of Islam . . . the Koran teaches brotherhood.’’
Yousafzai also spoke against the custom of child brides in her home country, a tradition common in Nigeria, too. Boko Haram has threatened to sell some of the girls as brides if its fighters are not freed.
Boko Haram attacks continued over the weekend, with witnesses blaming the group for the bombing of a major bridge on a northeast Nigerian highway that further limits access to its base camps in the Sambisa Forest, where it is believed to be holding some of the girls.
Yousafzai met with Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, and told reporters he ‘‘promised me that the girls will be returned as soon as possible.’’
She described an emotional meeting Sunday with some of the girls’ parents.
‘‘I could see tears in their eyes. They were hopeless. But they seem to have this hope in their hearts.’’
Jonathan has not met with the parents.
Related: Nigerian president meets parents of abducted girls
When activists tried to march peacefully to the presidential villa in May, they were blocked by police. Jonathan canceled a planned trip to Chibok that same month.
On Monday, he told Yousafzai that criticism his government is not doing enough ‘‘is very wrong and misplaced,’’ according to a presidential statement.
‘‘The great challenge in rescuing the Chibok girls is the need to ensure that they are rescued alive,’’ he said.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau put out a video Sunday in which he repeated demands that the government release detained insurgents in exchange for the girls’ freedom.
‘‘Nigerians are saying ‘Bring Back Our Girls,’ and we are telling Jonathan to bring back our arrested warriors, our army,’’ he said in the video.
Since the mass abduction, Boko Haram has increased the number and deadliness of its attacks, bombing cities and towns and gunning down people, looting livestock, and burning huts in the villages.
In the new video, Shekau crowed over recent victories. At least four people died in June 25 blasts. He also claimed responsibility for a bomb at the biggest shopping mall in Abuja that killed at least 21 people.
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There is a Pakistan-Nigeria connection:
Pakistan Powder Keg
Boko Haram killed 2,053 civilians in Nigeria this year
"Boko Haram blamed in Nigerian village raid" Associated Press July 19, 2014
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Boko Haram gunmen killed many villagers and set homes ablaze in a northeastern Nigerian town 53 miles from the strategic center of Maiduguri before dawn Friday, according to survivors.
Residents of Damboa town said they were ‘‘piling up corpses.’’
Yeah, that really wins over a populace.
Half the town is up in flames, say civilian defense fighters there according to Nigerian Vigilante Group spokesman Abbas Gava.
Well-armed extremists attacked as residents were preparing for the 5 a.m. dawn prayers and the civilian defense fighters could only resist with clubs and homemade shotguns, he said.
Damboa has been besieged for two weeks, since extremists on July 4 attacked a new tank battalion base set up on its outskirts. The Defense Ministry reported it repelled the attack and killed at least 50 insurgents, with the deaths of six soldiers including the commanding officer. But locals said the soldiers were driven from the base and extremists twice have ambushed military convoys trying to reach it in the past week.
The militants had cut access to the town from the south when they blew up a bridge. Damboa is on the main road south from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
Both Nigeria’s military and Boko Haram have been claiming victories on the battlefield in the rapidly spreading insurgency in Africa’s most populous nation and biggest oil producer.
Boko Haram has attracted international condemnation for the abductions of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls, who have been held in captivity for 3 months.
Boko Haram means ‘‘Western education is sinful.’’
So is reading a jew$paper.
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The honeymoon is over, readers. Sorry.
"Bombings kill at least 39 in Nigeria" Associated Press July 24, 2014
ABUJA, Nigeria — Bomb blasts that appeared to target former Nigerian military ruler Muhammadu Buhari and a prominent moderate Muslim cleric killed dozens of people Wednesday, but left both leaders unharmed, according to Nigerian state security.
At least 39 other people were killed in the two blasts, said State Police Commissioner Umar Usman Shehu. The death toll is expected to rise, as witnesses at both bomb sites said dozens of people were killed in each of the blasts.
‘‘The unfortunate event, clearly an assassination attempt, came from a fast-moving vehicle that made many attempts to overtake my security car,’’ Buhari said in a statement issued after the bombings.
Buhari is currently a leader of Nigeria’s leading opposition party, but is not yet a candidate for president as no contenders have been formally declared ahead of 2015 elections.
Someone want to keep his Goodluck and keep him from running?
The other bombing appeared to target Sheik Dahiru Bauchi, who is known for preaching against the violent Islamist extremism of the militant group Boko Haram.
The second blast, which hit the Kaduna marketplace where Buhari was about 2½ hours after the first explosion, left bodies and body parts scattered, said witnesses.
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And at the bottom of it all?
"Umaru Dikko; ex-Nigerian official in bizarre kidnap plot" by Bruce Weber | New York Times July 17, 2014
NEW YORK — In July 1984, Umaru Dikko, a former Nigerian government official living in exile after a military coup, was kidnapped outside his London estate, packed in a shipping crate, and driven to Stansted Airport, to be flown back to Lagos, Nigeria, where he stood accused of embezzlement and other crimes.
The abduction was witnessed by Mr. Dikko’s secretary, who alerted Scotland Yard, and the plot was foiled by customs officials, who held up the flight, opened two crates marked diplomatic baggage, and discovered not only a drug-stupefied Mr. Dikko, but also three of his kidnappers, who were shipping themselves to Africa, as well.
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Mr. Dikko, who returned to Nigeria in the 1990s, died July 1 in London, where he was said to be receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness. His death, at 77 or 78, was confirmed by the Nigerian consulate.
He was the minister of transport in the civilian government run by Shehu Shagari, his brother-in-law, from 1979 until the end of 1983, when the Nigerian Army forcibly expelled the administration and installed Major General Muhammadu Buhari as the head of state.
Mr. Dikko, an outspoken critic of the junta, fled the country shortly afterward, reportedly dressed as a priest, but continued to advocate an overthrow of the new rulers. The Buhari government accused him of corruption and of stealing millions of dollars from a rice distribution program he oversaw, charges he denied.
Sounds a lot like Thailand.
Seventeen people were arrested as complicit in the kidnapping. Four men were convicted and went to prison. One was a Nigerian diplomat and former army officer; the others were Israelis, at least two of whom were alleged to be members of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. The third was a physician who applied the anesthesia and boxed himself up with Mr. Dikko in order to monitor him during the flight and keep him from dying....
The governments of Nigeria and Israel denied involvement, and the four defendants said they were mercenaries hired by Nigerian businessmen.
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NEXT DAY UPDATE: Boston’s Nigerian Catholics mark parish jubilee
Also see: Ebola Now in Nigeria
