Boko Haram Massacres More Sleeping Students In Nigeria

I saw a headline on a Facebook page which I assumed was a link to an old article.  That often happens. But no, Nigeria's Boko Haram animals slaughtered 43 sleeping students around 2.a.m. at a secondary boarding school (Federal Government College) in the north eastern town of Buni Yadi.

The attackers reportedly hurled explosives into student residential buildings, sprayed gunfire into rooms and hacked a number of students to death.

A senior medical source at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital in Yobe's capital Damaturu said the gunmen only targeted male students and that female students were "spared".

July 2013 over 40 people were killed at another school, most of them children, some burned alive.

And last September more than 40 were gunned down while sleeping at an agriculture training school. At least a thousand have lost their lives since Boko Haram has ramped up its fight to establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

In a video sent to AFP last week, Boko Haram's purported leader, Abubakar Shekau, said he would continue his relentless campaign of violence on anyone who supports democracy or so-called Western values.

President Goodluck Jonathan has said he is trying to get them to end the violence and to

 lay down their arms and engage in talks to address their grievances.

But it's quite obvious what they want - an extreme Islamic state - and they're certainly not going to end the violence until that happens. I'm not sure why these world leaders seem to think they can negotiate with extremists like the Taliban, Boko Haram or Al-Shabaab.

More on the story here.

18 Christians Killed In NIgeria By Radical Islamists Boko Haram

Another attack on Christians in the predominately Muslim northern part of Nigeria. 18 dead, so far, including three children.

Part of the violence is being blamed on the radical Muslim sect Boko Haram, but it was just ordinary Muslim villagers who attacked their Christian neighbours (30 miles from Kano) in response to a trader who allegedly insulted their Prophet Mohammed. According to the police there were no deaths, although one witness, Sadiq Ahmed, claims there were four dead bodies in front of shops owned by Christians, torched shops and a church.

Officials believe Boko Haram is responsible for three separate attacks that have occurred this week in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria. There has been no official count, and the 18 dead were reported by witnesses, which means there could be many more. The police might be reluctant to report more deaths in case it prompts retaliatory action by Christians.

Earlier this week, a Christian vigilante group in central Nigeria killed a Muslim resident after he defied an illegal checkpoint the group had put up to protect their church from a Boko Haram attack, even though the sect had not previously struck in that area. The killing sparked riots that left 10 people dead.

Though the Muslims and Christians lived in peace for many years in that country, the increasing trend towards radical Islam has changed that dynamic, and there's nothing the government can do to stop the escalating violence.

President Goodluck Jonathan, whose government has responded to the crisis by sending more troops to the most affected areas, recently said on state-run television that Boko Haram remained a "faceless" group and that there was nobody for the government to meet with to seek peace.

Not that Boko Haram or any of the other radical Islamists in African countries (or elsewhere) are interested in peace.

After Christmas Day Bombings Boko Haram Tells Nigerian Christians They Have 3 Days To Get Out

Boko Haram- those oh-so enlightened and civilized Islamic extremists in Nigeria- after bombing several churches and killing about 40 on Christmas day, have told the southern Christians  living in the predominantly Islamic north to get the heck out in 3 days or else. 

As a result of those church bombings and escalating violence elsewhere, Nigeria's Christian President Goodluck Jonathan declared  a state of emergency in parts of the north where the "cancerous" (as he put it) Boko Haram killed almost 500 people last year.

"(Boko Haram) started as a harmless group . . . they have now grown cancerous," Mr Jonathan said.  "And Nigeria, being the body, they want to kill it. But nobody will allow them to do that."

Besides giving the Christians a 3 day ultimatum, they also threatened soldiers. During a conference call with journalists by Abul Qaqa, a spokesman for Boko Haram, he said

“We find it pertinent to state that soldiers will only kill innocent Muslims in the local government areas where the state of emergency was declared. We would confront them squarely to protect our brothers.”

Speaking in the Hausa language common throughout the north, Qaqa said “we also wish to call on our fellow Muslims to come back to the north because we have evidence that they would be attacked.” 

Three days, how generous.

Boko Haram is a Salafi-inspired group that was formed in 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf, its educated, Mercedes Benz-owning spiritual leader. Killed in 2009 by Nigerian forces, he believed anything western was un-Islamic and therefore haram (forbidden), hence the loosely translated name for Boko Haram: 'Western education is forbidden'.  But it wasn't until 2009 that it officially turned into a terrorist group, although that was probably always its hidden agenda.  Apparently, Yusuf built a mosque and school with the express goal of training jihadis.  He accomplished this by providing an education for poor people throughout Nigeria and surrounding countries. Although the Nigerian government had been forewarned by at least one military official and various Muslim leaders about Boko Haram's aims, nothing was ever done until 2009, and by then it was too late. This is the problem when governments tolerate these types of groups without keeping tabs on them. They start off as seemingly innocent and "harmless" until the 'cancer' metastasizes and spreads. and then you're done for. 

But it's not just Christians who have been targeted, they have also attacked other Muslims who don't happen to be as backwards as they. And the Christians have retaliated, and leaders claim that next time around they will defend themselves. These latest round of attacks by Boko Haram, especially the Christmas day bombings, have the country fearing an escalation of violence that could spiral out of control, even more so than it has.

This is a good lesson for us all.  Cut out that cancer before it kills us.