by Fulan Nasrallah
First Battle Of Konduga
It took me almost 48 hours to obtain very reliable information of how events played out on the ground in Konduga Town, Konduga LGA, Borno State of North East Nigeria, on 12th September, when insurgent fighters in their hundreds launched a two-pronged assault targeting Kawuri Village and Konduga Town about 40km from Maiduguri to the south and east.
Utilizing night cover around 3:45AM scores of fighters drawn from combined Yusufiyya forces (all four groups) struck at Kawuri Village, engaging CJTF forces and an estimated company-sized force of soldiers for twenty minutes.
Fifteen minutes after the Kawuri assault began, a main force of some 450 fighters (confirmed) in trucks and Toyota picukups attacked Konduga from the direction of Bama.
Meanwhile company-sized elements drawn from 143 Infantry Battalion (newly trained by US California National Guard Special Operations personel drawn from 19th Special Forces Group) and 176 Special Forces Battalion (detached Brigade Of Guards), and supporting tube field artillery units drawn from a yet unspecified artillery unit within 1 Division, had developed proper defensive and firing zones into which the insurgents were channeled.
At 09:00AM, 150 insurgent reinforcement fighters arrived on scene accompanied by several truck mounted 60mm and 81mm mortar pieces providing the insurgents with their first artillery cover of the engagement (the insurgents are confirmed to have mostly utilized truck mounted 12.5mm machine guns along with man portable Dashoka and RPG teams to provide heavy weapons support throughout the engagement).
By some minutes past 12PM, insurgent forces broke off the assault retreating with scores of wounded why living some 80 something bodies (confirmed) on the field. A military source on the scene confirmed that over 35 soldiers were killed and dozens more injured in various degrees.
Insurgent forces abandoned damaged vehicles and the Army captured several mortar pieces. Army patrol units followed the retreating insurgents, harassing them and conducting recon-by-fire sweeps until 5km outside Konduga they ran into fresh insurgent troops (estimated at a 100 or so) and a firefight broke out lasting some 18 minutes while the the retreating insurgents retreated, then the obvious rearguard (the new arrivals) and the Army recon units broke off contact, each side returning to its territory.
Analysis
Notable in this was the ‘complete lack of air cover’. Despite frantic radio appeals by on the ground commanders for air support, ‘not one jet showed up’ over the battlefield.
Firstly for the Nigerian Army this was an important battle and victory especially for its propaganda value. With elements of arguably the two best-trained formations in the entire Nigerian Army deployed to engage the insurgents at Konduga, based on what was definitely credible enough intelligence, it is obvious the Nigerian Government was intent on securing a victory (the commanders for morale, the politicians for political points). But on closer examination, this battle and victory for the Nigerian Army was not strategically worth it, and here:
1) This was not an attempt to seize Konduga as is being portrayed in the media nor was the intention to march on Maiduguri. This was a probing attack to test the defensive positions around Maiduguri. 600 men (total number of insurgent fighters said to have taken part at the Battle of Konduga) is definitely not enough to invest and seize Konduga not to talk of Maiduguri, and the insurgents are definitely not stupid (stupid people don’t outsmart an army like Nigeria’s and overrun towns and a city in three whole states). In seizing Gulak, Madagali, Bazza, and Michika, places with considerably less military presence than Konduga, they employed nothing less than 1,000 fighters per each operation. For Konduga, they needed at minimum, 1,800 fighters and definitely much more artillery and heavy weapons support than was used at the last battle of Konduga.
2) The insurgents do not lack artillery (mortars, recoiless rifles, Triple-A guns), but surprisingly they did not deploy much artillery which they would have did (especially the Tripple-A guns), if they intended to capture Konduga.
I expect more of such probes to take place along the approaches to Maiduguri. If the insurgents aim to seize Maiduguri, this might be a prelude to a full-scale assault on Konduga, in which case building on lessons learnt from it, the knowledge gained of the kind of forces they may likely meet in a second battle of Konduga will definitely be put to use by the insurgent battle-planners.
Did this battle change anything? Absolutely did not. Just some kilometers outside Konduga insurgent forces maintain their very visible presence. There was no withdrawal from positions which they occupy.
The Army did not press the advantage it should have gained had its opponents been in flight from the battlefield, rather it did not because it could not, and the recon-by-fire teams it sent out to harass the retreating insurgents were forced back under fire from rebel rearguard forces.
On Bama And Other Towns
Ineffectual aerial raids (note my choice of words, raids, not bombardments) continue on almost daily basis targeting already bombed-out locations apparently still marked as ‘suspected terrorist positions’ e.g the mosques and areas the palaces of traditional rulers in insurgent-occupied towns.
Some civilian casualties are said to have been killed by exploding aerial ordnance in Bama yesterday and today, although this cannot be confirmed.
Do these raids serve any meaningful strategic purpose? I have been asked this question by many followers of this blog via email. The answer depends on if these raids were designed to degrade insurgent capabilities or just to annoy the insurgents and piss them the flaming hell off.
If the aim was the first, the aircraft are too few and too vulnerable to enemy Triple-A guns to do any serious damage. Add the fact that very few insurgents are in the towns as most are dispersed in the surrounding hills and bushes.
However if the aim was to annoy the insurgents like a stingless male anopheles mosquito buzzing in the air, then the aim can certainly be described as over achieved as not only the insurgents but also the locals left in the areas have been pissed off by the air raids that seem to do nothing but destroy the mosques.
Shot Down Jet?
On Saturday 13th September I was made aware that the previous day, a single Alpha Jet was scampered to provide air support to troops battling insurgents at Konduga, my initial source who is a ranking AirForce officer said the plane is suspected to have been shot over Bama-Gwoza axis or Northern Adamawa State. An Insurgent source whom I sent a feeler to claims that a Triple-A gun in Limankara belonging to Harakatul-Muhajiriin claimed to have engaged a Nigerian AirForce plane between 11:00AM and 11:09AM scoring hits . Today the second day after the Alpha Jet left base and did not return, the Director of Defence Information, Major-Gen Chris Olukolade announced via email to journalists that an Alpha Jet with two pilots is ‘missing’ somewhere over Adamawa, leaving base by 10:45AM on a mission and expected back by 12pm, putting it in the air at the time my source claimed a plane was engaged by anti-aircraft fire.
Showing posts with label Nigeria SITREP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigeria SITREP. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Monday, September 8, 2014
Sad Note..Ode To The Dead (Boko Haram)
by Fulan Nasrullah
Sad Note..Ode To The Dead
Yesterday Michika LGA in Adamawa State was completely overrun by insurgent forces who took about five towns including the town of Michika itself, hometown of some of my dearest friends.
All the few women left in the conquered towns are said to have been pressed into sexual service by the conquerors who gathered the few ones unable to flee and then distributed them amongst themselves. Residents from the towns and refugees from other wartorn areas e.g Izge and Damboa who fled to this area for safety have been forced to join the exodus either across the mountainous borders to Cameroon or into the mountains themselves or to not yet conquered towns.
As usual the Nigerian Armed Forces were completely unable to stop their advance and at the end were forced to yield to the insurgents superior firepower.
The problem is not the lack of courage on the part of the Nigerian soldier. No it is a lack of political will and an understanding of what it means to defend ones country by our greedy corrupt leaders.
The Nigerian soldier is a fine specimen amongst the finest I have met or served with. He is courageous and does any duty to the best of his ability. He will defend that name and that reputation that his eminent predecessors have earned in blood in The Congo in the 60s, Zimbabwe in the 70s, Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 90s, Darfur and South Sudan in the 2000s. But he has been sold by his senior command and rendered useless by the political leaders he surrendered the nation’s future to in trust in 1999.
I salute the men and the officers (note my order of precedence) of the Nigerian Armed Forces for their gallant service over and above the call of duty despite impossible odds stacked against them.. Victory Belongs To God Alone….
Sad Note..Ode To The Dead
Yesterday Michika LGA in Adamawa State was completely overrun by insurgent forces who took about five towns including the town of Michika itself, hometown of some of my dearest friends.
All the few women left in the conquered towns are said to have been pressed into sexual service by the conquerors who gathered the few ones unable to flee and then distributed them amongst themselves. Residents from the towns and refugees from other wartorn areas e.g Izge and Damboa who fled to this area for safety have been forced to join the exodus either across the mountainous borders to Cameroon or into the mountains themselves or to not yet conquered towns.
As usual the Nigerian Armed Forces were completely unable to stop their advance and at the end were forced to yield to the insurgents superior firepower.
The problem is not the lack of courage on the part of the Nigerian soldier. No it is a lack of political will and an understanding of what it means to defend ones country by our greedy corrupt leaders.
The Nigerian soldier is a fine specimen amongst the finest I have met or served with. He is courageous and does any duty to the best of his ability. He will defend that name and that reputation that his eminent predecessors have earned in blood in The Congo in the 60s, Zimbabwe in the 70s, Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 90s, Darfur and South Sudan in the 2000s. But he has been sold by his senior command and rendered useless by the political leaders he surrendered the nation’s future to in trust in 1999.
I salute the men and the officers (note my order of precedence) of the Nigerian Armed Forces for their gallant service over and above the call of duty despite impossible odds stacked against them.. Victory Belongs To God Alone….
Saturday, September 6, 2014
5th September 2014 Nigeria SITREP
by Fulan Nasrallah
Maiduguri: Reports indicate that soldiers of the Nigerian Army 7 Division (Infantry) headquartered in the metropolis of Maiduguri are evacuating their families out of two important Army bases (Giwa and Maimalari barracks) including the divisional headquarters after letters and fliers from the Boko Haram were dropped off in strategic locations across the metropolis (including at the gates of the bases) announcing the intention of the insurgents to attack and take over the city of over 1.8 million people, the largest and most important urban centre in North East Nigeria.
WarZone South: 4th September 2014, insurgent forces attack and push military forces out of positions around Kawuri Town in Konduga LGA just south of Maiduguri. Residents are said to be rapidly emptying out of the town to Maiduguri and other areas as they fear a repeat of the January 2014 slaughter when insurgents stormed the town overnight and massacred over 80 civilians.
Confirmed: Thousands of insurgent fighters are massing up to the south and east of Maiduguri according to sources on the ground. Aerial reconnaissance conducted by Nigerian AirForce pilots is said to show that more fighters than the insurgents are thought to have (by conventional analysts basing their analyses on faulty Intel) are forming up at suspected stand-up points. Heavy towed artillery, armoured vehicles and Triple-A guns are confirmed to have been sighted.
Last month two Nigerian pilots faced being put before a court martial after they refused to bomb the coordinates of their primary targets (which were Nigerian troops in the field) and headed back to base. On their way back to Maiduguri they overflew more than a thousand insurgent fighters in Toyota pickups and armoured vehicles and heading to an unknown destination. The pilots made the split decision to drop their payloads on the insurgents. As soon as the insurgents saw them coming round to attack they opened fire with 57mm and 23mm Triple-A guns and heavily damaged the AirForce plane while suffering some casualties. The AirForce pilots skillfully brought the plane to base and made a hard landing only for them to be arrested and detained for disobeying orders to strike their primary targets. They were accused by Defence an AirForce Intelligence of lying about the Triple A guns and were facing charges of negligence amongst others. Now subsequent aerial recon missions to the fall of Bama have vindicated their claim.
An agreement brokered by Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi on 4th September will see all four factions join forces to attack (invest) and capture Maiduguri . This comes as negotiators from the factions of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi, Sheikh Khalid Al-Barnawi and Abu Usamah Al-Ansori are said to be currently meeting in Gwoza for talks on proposed merger of the three groups into one body.
One source says up to 15,000 fighters may take part in any attack on Maiduguri...
Adamawa: Meanwhile eight of the fifteen aspirants for the ticket of the coming October 11 Governorship Election on the platform of the PDP have stepped down after a marathon meeting with Senate President David Mark at the Presidential Villa in Abuja which lasted till the early hours of Friday 5th September.
Amongst them is Nuhu Ribadu (I personally do not like this man) former anti-corruption czar under the Obasanjo administration and Presidential Candidate of the Action Congress (one of the parties which merged into the All Peoples Congress) during the 2011 Presidential Elections against President Jonathan (he lost woefully to the President and General Buhari and was insignificant during the election).
6th September 2014 Emergency Nigeria SITREP
The town of Gulak in Adamawa State was overrun yesterday evening by insurgent forces according to local media reports. Other reports confirmed that hundreds of insurgent fighters (most probably the recent fresh troops reportedly crossing in from Cameroon days back) in Toyota pickup trucks backed by truck mounted heavy machine guns and over a dozen armoured vehicles stormed the town of Gulak causing over 400 Nigerian troops members of Task Force Mike (Special Operations troops and elements of 3 Division Armoured headquartered at Jos, Plateau State) to flee the town to neighbouring Mubi.
Gulak had previously been designated the principal staging area for the launch of the counter attack to recover Madagali LGA from insurgent control.
Maiduguri: Reports indicate that soldiers of the Nigerian Army 7 Division (Infantry) headquartered in the metropolis of Maiduguri are evacuating their families out of two important Army bases (Giwa and Maimalari barracks) including the divisional headquarters after letters and fliers from the Boko Haram were dropped off in strategic locations across the metropolis (including at the gates of the bases) announcing the intention of the insurgents to attack and take over the city of over 1.8 million people, the largest and most important urban centre in North East Nigeria.
WarZone South: 4th September 2014, insurgent forces attack and push military forces out of positions around Kawuri Town in Konduga LGA just south of Maiduguri. Residents are said to be rapidly emptying out of the town to Maiduguri and other areas as they fear a repeat of the January 2014 slaughter when insurgents stormed the town overnight and massacred over 80 civilians.
Confirmed: Thousands of insurgent fighters are massing up to the south and east of Maiduguri according to sources on the ground. Aerial reconnaissance conducted by Nigerian AirForce pilots is said to show that more fighters than the insurgents are thought to have (by conventional analysts basing their analyses on faulty Intel) are forming up at suspected stand-up points. Heavy towed artillery, armoured vehicles and Triple-A guns are confirmed to have been sighted.
Last month two Nigerian pilots faced being put before a court martial after they refused to bomb the coordinates of their primary targets (which were Nigerian troops in the field) and headed back to base. On their way back to Maiduguri they overflew more than a thousand insurgent fighters in Toyota pickups and armoured vehicles and heading to an unknown destination. The pilots made the split decision to drop their payloads on the insurgents. As soon as the insurgents saw them coming round to attack they opened fire with 57mm and 23mm Triple-A guns and heavily damaged the AirForce plane while suffering some casualties. The AirForce pilots skillfully brought the plane to base and made a hard landing only for them to be arrested and detained for disobeying orders to strike their primary targets. They were accused by Defence an AirForce Intelligence of lying about the Triple A guns and were facing charges of negligence amongst others. Now subsequent aerial recon missions to the fall of Bama have vindicated their claim.
An agreement brokered by Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi on 4th September will see all four factions join forces to attack (invest) and capture Maiduguri . This comes as negotiators from the factions of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi, Sheikh Khalid Al-Barnawi and Abu Usamah Al-Ansori are said to be currently meeting in Gwoza for talks on proposed merger of the three groups into one body.
One source says up to 15,000 fighters may take part in any attack on Maiduguri...
Adamawa: Meanwhile eight of the fifteen aspirants for the ticket of the coming October 11 Governorship Election on the platform of the PDP have stepped down after a marathon meeting with Senate President David Mark at the Presidential Villa in Abuja which lasted till the early hours of Friday 5th September.
Amongst them is Nuhu Ribadu (I personally do not like this man) former anti-corruption czar under the Obasanjo administration and Presidential Candidate of the Action Congress (one of the parties which merged into the All Peoples Congress) during the 2011 Presidential Elections against President Jonathan (he lost woefully to the President and General Buhari and was insignificant during the election).
6th September 2014 Emergency Nigeria SITREP
The town of Gulak in Adamawa State was overrun yesterday evening by insurgent forces according to local media reports. Other reports confirmed that hundreds of insurgent fighters (most probably the recent fresh troops reportedly crossing in from Cameroon days back) in Toyota pickup trucks backed by truck mounted heavy machine guns and over a dozen armoured vehicles stormed the town of Gulak causing over 400 Nigerian troops members of Task Force Mike (Special Operations troops and elements of 3 Division Armoured headquartered at Jos, Plateau State) to flee the town to neighbouring Mubi.
Gulak had previously been designated the principal staging area for the launch of the counter attack to recover Madagali LGA from insurgent control.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Who Are The Boko Haram?
by Fulan Nasrullah
Good question. Most people find it hard to navigate through the confusing myriad of stories about Boko Haram. Especially .the lies and half-truths and outright ignorance propagated by contemporary Main Stream Media (MSM) as ‘facts’.
To understand what these people are one needs access to them. Apart from Shekau, the rest of the Boko Haram are publicity wary, viewing it as a distraction to their ’cause’ so knowing them tends to get a bit difficult
And then there is the government. You know too much about the Boko Haram, you are a Boko Haram operative or a sympathizer, and its off with your head a la Alice in Wonderland style. So one tends to be cautious albeit a little bit paranoid about what in can say or even hear.
However what is clear that I can pass along is this.
There are four groups, three of whom are allied to each other. They are namely:
1. Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lid-Da’wati Wal-Jihaad of Abubakar Shekau
2. Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Ahlis-Sunnah Lid-Da’wati Wal-Jihaad of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi
…. Group of the People of The Sunnah(Traditions) For the Call/Propagation (Evangelism) and The Struggling/Striving
3. Ansorul-Muslimiina Fii Bilaadis-Sudan led by Abu Usamah Al-Ansori
….. Helpers Of The Muslims In The Lands of The Sudan (Sudan is a classical Arabic term referring to the entire part of Muslim Africa that runs from Senegal and the Atlantic to the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Some historians also include Ethiopia and Somalia up to the Juba and Shabelle regions in it
4. Haraktul-Muhajiriina wal-Mujahidiin led by Khalid Al-Barnawi.
Movement of Those Who Have Migrated and Those Who Are Striving……..
Origins….
These four groups all originated from the students of Muhammad Yusuf who survived the 2009 Conflict in Maiduguri which was badly mismanaged by the government. They first called to seek revenge for the massacre of several thousand of innocent residents of Maiduguri and the extra-Judicial murder of Sheikh Yusuf.
Their call has metamorphosed into a whole different reason for fighting
Ideology…..
They are Yusufiyya. They follow strictly the teachings of Muhammad Yusuf. However the group of Shekau is becoming more Takfiri and leaving the Yusufiyyah Ideology and this is causing estrangement between it and the other three groups.
They are Yusufiyyah Sunnis I.e Sunnis on the Aqeedah (Creed) of Muhammad Yusuf and the Manhaj(Methodology) of Thaurah fil-Jihad (Revolution In Striving) to the core. They can stand Ikhwanis since they revere Qutb and Al-Banna.
However, the three other groups I.e Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi, Harakatul-Muhajiriin of Khalid Al-Barnawi and Ansorul-Muslimiin of Abu Usamah Al-Ansori despise Ikhwanul-Muslimiin (Muslim Brotherhood) because the Ikhwan participate in democracy and protest which the Yusufiyyah reject.
Their Views Of Al-Baghdadi…..
Shekau and his group have links with Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and his group that date back to May/June 2014 when a delegation from Shekau arrived in Ar-Raqqoh in Syria to seek an agreement of cooperation with Al-Baghdadi and his then Islamic State of Iraq and Sham. The agreement was reached and half a dozen technical advisors from the ISIS are said to have come to Nigeria via Chad and Cameroon to train Shekau’s forces. Apart from those technical no substantial support from Al-Baghdadi flowed to Shekau.
While Shekau obviously admires Baghdad, it I unclear so far if he has pledged loyalty to Al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State yet or if he is even willing to go that far.
The other three groups take a radically different view of Al-Baghdadi, deriding him as an ‘adventurer’ and a ‘bloodthirsty descendant of Al-Hajjaj Bin Yusuf’ and as ‘one who calls to misguidance’.
Shekau’s association with Al-Baghdadi and his adopting of the Takfiri code of Al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State has caused the other three groups to be wary of him and to band together in case they may need to fight him in the future.
What Are They Fighting For….
I must confess a lack of complete knowledge of what they are fighting for.
Shekau’s objective is totally indiscernible to me. If he wants to conquer the whole Nigeria or just a part, I simply cannot tell.
The others wanted revenge for 2009(Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi), defence of Muslims against the alleged plots of Christian Association of Nigeria and the fanatic neo-Zionist churches that are found in Northern Nigeria e.g ECWA (Evangelical Communion Of West Africa and COCIN (Church of Christ In Nigeria) with islamophobic ideologies and known consorts of Israel’s Mossad (Sheikh Abu Usamah Al-Ansori), and joining the global Jihad against the enemies of Islam (America and pro- American Muslim regimes) and waging Jihad to protect Muslim lands (Khalid Al-Barnawi), respectively.
Now buoyed on by their fast growing strength, their increasing numbers, their easy victories and their increasing arsenal, they are no longer fighting fr the mundane causes of the past. They (especially Khalid Al-Barnawi and Abu Usamah Al-Ansori) believe they can defeat the Nigerian Army and overthrow the current system of government and establish an Islamic Union/State/Emirate of Nigeria or something like that based on their rule and their ideas. They see this war as a long struggle that they will fight one village at a time until the whole of Nigeria is under their heel willingly or unwillingly.
Before they took Gwoza, negotiations were possible in fact they were calling for negotiations. But after the ease of defending Damboa, retaking Gamboru-Ngala, seizing Madagali and chasing Nigerian troops into Cameroon, they are confident that in the long run they can and will win.
Good question. Most people find it hard to navigate through the confusing myriad of stories about Boko Haram. Especially .the lies and half-truths and outright ignorance propagated by contemporary Main Stream Media (MSM) as ‘facts’.
To understand what these people are one needs access to them. Apart from Shekau, the rest of the Boko Haram are publicity wary, viewing it as a distraction to their ’cause’ so knowing them tends to get a bit difficult
And then there is the government. You know too much about the Boko Haram, you are a Boko Haram operative or a sympathizer, and its off with your head a la Alice in Wonderland style. So one tends to be cautious albeit a little bit paranoid about what in can say or even hear.
However what is clear that I can pass along is this.
There are four groups, three of whom are allied to each other. They are namely:
1. Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lid-Da’wati Wal-Jihaad of Abubakar Shekau
2. Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Ahlis-Sunnah Lid-Da’wati Wal-Jihaad of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi
…. Group of the People of The Sunnah(Traditions) For the Call/Propagation (Evangelism) and The Struggling/Striving
3. Ansorul-Muslimiina Fii Bilaadis-Sudan led by Abu Usamah Al-Ansori
….. Helpers Of The Muslims In The Lands of The Sudan (Sudan is a classical Arabic term referring to the entire part of Muslim Africa that runs from Senegal and the Atlantic to the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Some historians also include Ethiopia and Somalia up to the Juba and Shabelle regions in it
4. Haraktul-Muhajiriina wal-Mujahidiin led by Khalid Al-Barnawi.
Movement of Those Who Have Migrated and Those Who Are Striving……..
Origins….
These four groups all originated from the students of Muhammad Yusuf who survived the 2009 Conflict in Maiduguri which was badly mismanaged by the government. They first called to seek revenge for the massacre of several thousand of innocent residents of Maiduguri and the extra-Judicial murder of Sheikh Yusuf.
Their call has metamorphosed into a whole different reason for fighting
Ideology…..
They are Yusufiyya. They follow strictly the teachings of Muhammad Yusuf. However the group of Shekau is becoming more Takfiri and leaving the Yusufiyyah Ideology and this is causing estrangement between it and the other three groups.
They are Yusufiyyah Sunnis I.e Sunnis on the Aqeedah (Creed) of Muhammad Yusuf and the Manhaj(Methodology) of Thaurah fil-Jihad (Revolution In Striving) to the core. They can stand Ikhwanis since they revere Qutb and Al-Banna.
However, the three other groups I.e Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi, Harakatul-Muhajiriin of Khalid Al-Barnawi and Ansorul-Muslimiin of Abu Usamah Al-Ansori despise Ikhwanul-Muslimiin (Muslim Brotherhood) because the Ikhwan participate in democracy and protest which the Yusufiyyah reject.
Their Views Of Al-Baghdadi…..
Shekau and his group have links with Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and his group that date back to May/June 2014 when a delegation from Shekau arrived in Ar-Raqqoh in Syria to seek an agreement of cooperation with Al-Baghdadi and his then Islamic State of Iraq and Sham. The agreement was reached and half a dozen technical advisors from the ISIS are said to have come to Nigeria via Chad and Cameroon to train Shekau’s forces. Apart from those technical no substantial support from Al-Baghdadi flowed to Shekau.
While Shekau obviously admires Baghdad, it I unclear so far if he has pledged loyalty to Al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State yet or if he is even willing to go that far.
The other three groups take a radically different view of Al-Baghdadi, deriding him as an ‘adventurer’ and a ‘bloodthirsty descendant of Al-Hajjaj Bin Yusuf’ and as ‘one who calls to misguidance’.
Shekau’s association with Al-Baghdadi and his adopting of the Takfiri code of Al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State has caused the other three groups to be wary of him and to band together in case they may need to fight him in the future.
What Are They Fighting For….
I must confess a lack of complete knowledge of what they are fighting for.
Shekau’s objective is totally indiscernible to me. If he wants to conquer the whole Nigeria or just a part, I simply cannot tell.
The others wanted revenge for 2009(Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi), defence of Muslims against the alleged plots of Christian Association of Nigeria and the fanatic neo-Zionist churches that are found in Northern Nigeria e.g ECWA (Evangelical Communion Of West Africa and COCIN (Church of Christ In Nigeria) with islamophobic ideologies and known consorts of Israel’s Mossad (Sheikh Abu Usamah Al-Ansori), and joining the global Jihad against the enemies of Islam (America and pro- American Muslim regimes) and waging Jihad to protect Muslim lands (Khalid Al-Barnawi), respectively.
Now buoyed on by their fast growing strength, their increasing numbers, their easy victories and their increasing arsenal, they are no longer fighting fr the mundane causes of the past. They (especially Khalid Al-Barnawi and Abu Usamah Al-Ansori) believe they can defeat the Nigerian Army and overthrow the current system of government and establish an Islamic Union/State/Emirate of Nigeria or something like that based on their rule and their ideas. They see this war as a long struggle that they will fight one village at a time until the whole of Nigeria is under their heel willingly or unwillingly.
Before they took Gwoza, negotiations were possible in fact they were calling for negotiations. But after the ease of defending Damboa, retaking Gamboru-Ngala, seizing Madagali and chasing Nigerian troops into Cameroon, they are confident that in the long run they can and will win.
Saturday, August 9, 2014
9TH/10TH August Nigeria SITREP (Boko Haram)
Fighting In Damboa
on 5th August 2014, elements of the 7th Infantry Division, Nigerian Army, backed by light attack jets of the Nigerian Airforce, commenced an assault to dislodge combined Boko Haram forces in control of Damboa Town and surrounding areas in Damboa Local Government Area (LGA), of Borno State, that the insurgents captured earlier in July.
At the same time, the insurgents captured their second local government seat and urban settlement in WarZone South, when they seized Gwoza Town (population 72,000) the headquarters of the LGA of the same name and some 30-40km from the Cameroonian border.
Damboa Town
The military assault on Damboa followed the Damboa-Maiduguri Highway. Sources estimated that the military force was around 850 soldiers including 160 Special Forces operators (trained by US Special Forces- 10th Special Forces Group, and American Private Military Contractors paid for by the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, and interestingly, Homeland Security.
The insurgents on the other hand, had an estimated 1,000 fighters inside Damboa Town and some 3,000 men, in the other parts of the LGA. Insurgent forces were drawn strictly from Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin.
In a sign of the insurgents adaptability and symbiosis, sources tell me that the fighters originally in charge of defending Damboa were from the Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar, but they were pulled out on Friday 1st August and deployed to fight in the Gwoza battlefield, while the bulk of Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin forces ( probably 10,000 or 12,000 men combined total) were pulled out of the Cameroon Front, the Mandara Mountains and other areas of Northeast Nigeria, to hold, defend and consolidate insurgent controlled territory i.e WarZone South
The strategic reasoning behind the current offensive of the Boko Haram/Yusufiyya in Northern Cameroon and WarZone South is simple. The insurgents are creating ’liberated’ territory inside Nigeria, and establishing their authority on the ground. And after realizing that their policy of not antagonizing Yauonde was not paying off (since Cameroon under intense French, American and Nigerian pressure has been preparing to flush out the rear bases of Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin from its territory), the insurgents have opened a second front in Cameroon and carrying out a long prepared contingency plan to destabilize Northern Cameroon and secure their rear bases.
Calculating that Cameroon cannot withstand the pressure of fighting a sophisticated and rapidly growing insurgency, they are turning up the heat in Northern Cameroon gradually. Some sources say if Paul Biya (Cameroon’s President) does not take the not-so-subtle hint, Harakatul-Muhajiriin (undoubtedly the elite of the four Yusufiyya groups) may create a proxy Cameroonian militancy out of its several hundred Cameroonian operatives it has recruited and trained for fighting in Nigeria, and unleash it on Yaoude.
To be able to transition from insurgent forces to alternative states (like Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communists did in Yunnan during the Chinese Civil War and World War II), the rebels need to be able to move their camps and forces from Cameroon back cross the border to Nigeria (WarZone South), and they also need to be able to draw supplies and have a line of retreat/safe zone where they can always move back into inside Cameroon if their ‘liberated’ territories are ever in danger of being overrun by Nigerian forces. To establish facts-on-the-ground or de facto sovereign territory, which from all indications is Southern Borno and South Yobe (while their fellow Yusufis-whom they are wary of- Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Abubakar Shekau replicate the same strategy in North Yobe and parts of Northern Borno), the trio of Ansorul-Muslimiin, Harakatul-Muhajiriin and Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah (Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi) need to hold on to Damboa (which cuts off Maiduguri from South Borno), and Gwoza (which provides the most hardened and secure route –from a military perspective- into Cameroon, as the Nigerian Military is non-existent in these areas save some few outposts, while the terrain is mountainous and easily held).
The Nigerian Army assault on Damboa Town began before daylight on Tuesday 5th August 2014, with Special Forces (Nigerian Army) raids on insurgent outposts at the approaches of the town. Forewarned about the military’s battle plan, the Joint Yusufiyya commander of the town’s defenders, said by my sources to be Abu Musa Al-Jaali As-Sudani (real names unknown) a Sudanese commander in Harakatul-Muhajiriin, ordered a retreat from the indefensible outposts to the more defendable , while he and his men prepared to engage the attacking soldiers. The Special Forces raids were followed by aerial bombardment of rebel-held positions inside the town and surrounding areas by the 79 Composite Group and the 75th Strike Group of the Nigerian Airforce based in Maiduguri, which lasted thirty minutes.
The initial ground assault by the infantrymen of 7th Infantry Division backed by AFVs (Armoured Fighting Vehicles) and half a dozen T-55s/T-64s was engaged by the insurgents at Duniyari, and after several hours of fighting in which the insurgents employed RPG-7s (according to an Army source) and a few 9K11 Malyutka (NATO reporting name AT-3 Sagger) anti-tank missiles, the Army’s attack was repulsed. However this was a feint attack.
A simultaneous prong (containing the main force) was also launched at the time the Duniyari engagement began. Under aerial, gunship and artillery fire the advancing soldiers succeeded in entering Damboa Town, but met stiff resistance from the insurgents who used booby traps, RPGs, snipers and IEDs to slow the soldiers before fighters opened fire on them from inside houses (abandoned by their residents) and courtyard, and also from heavily entrenched positions. Using 12.5mm and 57mm Anti-Aircraft Artillery guns, rebels rendered impotent the air cover the Nigerian Airforce was providing to the Army (the NAF uses mostly Dornier Alpha Jets, MEB-339s, L-39s and F-7s, a few of the MEB-339s and Alpha Jets were the air cover for the battle, two were reportedly damaged by ground Triple A fire).
Despite Nigerian Government sponsored disinformation, sources on both sides confirm that 70% of Damboa Town is under rebel control, 10% is held by the Army, while 20% is contested.
However the situation is still very fluid and can change at any time. But as now, the whole of Damboa Town and surrounding areas are controlled by the rebels except the highway to Maiduguri.
NB: On the evening of Friday 8th and the morning of Saturday 9th insurgent counter-attacks pushed the Army out of Damboa totally and resulted in a retreat by the soldiers to Government-held positions along the highway to Maiduguri the state capital. Two US Army advisors were reportedly present at during the Nigerian Army’s assault, along with an unidentified American ‘civilian’ who was introduced as ‘William Reid’.
Analysis
While the men of the Nigerian Armed Forces are capable and willing of developing and sustaining an offensive (on paper) to recapture and recover areas lost to the rebels, they suffer from a lack of so many things including weapons, intelligence, manpower, funding and dedicated strategists and tacticians. Also the entire counter-insurgency/war-effort is being run by the clueless political class taking lessons and directives from the US, Israel, Britain and France, and having no idea of the strategic disaster facing Nigeria should the insurgents win.
Right now the insurgents are still trying to decide what they are and what they want. They do not know if they want to conquer the whole of Nigeria and establish their rule, they are not even sure what their rule is; if it is full-scale Shariah or some form of Shariah. They are in a strategic dilemma. Much as Ansorul-Muslimiin was formed to defend Muslims against plots by Christian militias backed American Christian Zionist Churches, the Israeli Mossad and fanatic Nigerian Christians, it does not know what to do in relation to the Christians, should it fight all Christians or only some Christians.
Even Shekau the leader of the most hardline of all the Yusufiyya groups faces this same strategic dilemma, he is also confused on whether to conquer the whole of Nigeria or a portion of it to create an ‘Islamic’ State, or if to fight to take the whole Northern Nigeria or just the Borno-Yobe axis. He doesn’t also know if to kill all the Christians in his territory or to expel them or to kill some of them to keep the others in line. He is still confused whether to wage war on all the Muslims who oppose him or not. Thus you have a situation where should somehow the Nigerian Government folds and these people find themselves in Abuja at this point in time, they do not know what to do. This leaves them vulnerable to manipulation, especially the less brutal trio of Khalid Al-Barnawi, Bukar Al-Barnawi and Abu Usamah Al-Ansori who may amenable to a political settlement that gives Shariah Law equal constitutional status with English Common Law which is rooted in Medieval Christianity, and that also gives them an equal share of political and military power.
However this situation cannot be taken advantage of in any way by the authorities as the entire counter-insurgency has been politicized completely by the incompetent political class. Content in looting defence and security budgets, while playing politics with the whole war effort and dancing to the American/Western/Israeli tune, they are assisted by equally incompetent, greedy, self-serving military and security chiefs appointed into office as thank-you rewards for their unflinching support of the ruling party (the PDP) and its policies. Unfortunately the main opposition party the APC, is as bad as the PDP. Utterly in the grip of the US (like most Nigerian establishments) it is made up mostly of the same corrupt and incompetent political actors who were infuriated when they were left out of some lucrative looting schemes and out of anger jumped ship to join forces with General Muhammad Buhari (widely respected and regarded as the only honest politician), to take advantage of his popularity.
While the whole war effort is being coordinated by incompetents and the professional officers corps either sidelined or laid-off, the insurgents are reportedly massing up forces and gaining more ground in Biu, Kaga, Askira-Uba, Chibok and Hawul LGAs, and preparing to push the Army out of these areas once and for all.
Once the Damboa and Gwoza battles are decisively completed, I expect the rebels to seize Chibok, Biu and Askira-Uba in slow but steady offensives, starting by clearing the small villages before moving in to push out the Army from the towns, before swinging their shock troops to consolidate their hold on their rear bases in Cameroon’s Far North. Already Biu and Askira-Uba LGAs are 90% under their control, save Askira Town in Askira-Uba LGA and Biu Town, Sabon Layi and Mangada Kallari in Biu LGA.
Gwoza Battle
The Battle of Gwoza began on Tuesday 5th August 2014, around 9:00pm. Hundreds of Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah/Sheikh Bukar fighters assaulted the town and headquarters of Gwoza LGA of Borno State in Toyota Pickups and armoured vehicles. The rebels first attacked the military base and police station, overrunning them and capturing some military and police personnel, before seizing the rest of the town and clearing the area of CJTF (Civilian Joint Task Force) militiamen. Scores of people marked by insurgent spies as collaborators and government spies were either killed or bundled into trucks and driven towards Damboa.
Most of the residents of the town have fled into the surrounding 1300m high Gwoza Hills or the higher Mandara Mountains. By 4:00am local time, the entire LGA was under insurgent control, with government troops forced to flee at all other outposts in the area that were attacked.
The Emir of Gwoza, the area’s traditiona head has not been seen sinced the rebels captured the town. Alhaji Muhmmad Idriss Timta replaced his father who was killed along with the Emir of Askira-Uba on May 30th, by the insurgents.
Also the bridge at Pulka south of Gwoza, has been blown by rebel demolition teams. This cuts off Gwoza and thus Bama LGA from Adamawa State to the south. With the fall of Gwoza Town and environs, Gwoza, Bama and Damboa LGAs are now fully under insurgent control, while Kaga, Chibok, Koduga, Kukawa, Marte, Ngala, Dikwa and other local government areas in Borno State (except Jere, Mafa, and Maiduguri) are heavily contested.
Cameroon
On 6th August 2014, Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah/Sheikh Bukar murder killed nine passengers on a bus in an exchange of fire with Cameroonian soldiers, in which a Cameroonian soldier also died. Two insurgents confirmed dead.
Cameroon is moving up to 4,000 soldiers including troops from the elite Rapid Intervention Battalion to its Far North Region to flush out Boko Haram fighters and camps in the area.
Amadou Ali the Cameroonian Vice PM whose wife was kidnapped earlier, is reported to have been targeted because he has a list of over 450 youths from Kolofata (is hometown where him and his wife were when the insurgents attempted to kidnap him but ended up taking his wife instead after he escaped into the bush), who have been recruited into the insurgency in Nigeria.
Cameroonian Intelligence confirms that some of the fighters who stormed Kolofata and kidnapped Cameroon’s Vice PM’s wife were locals who have joined the insurgents in Nigeria.
A source corroborates the involvement of Cameroonians in the insurgent groups, saying that Haraktul-Muhajiriin has emphasized on recruiting one Cameroonian, one Nigerien and one Chadian for every Nigerian it recruits, and that over the years it and Ansorul-Muslimiin have successfully recruited and trained over 3,000 Cameroonians, Nigeriens, Sudanese and Chadians, most of whom have fought in Nigeria, while several hundreds of these combat veterans have been sent home to run camps, safe houses, recruitment networks, armouries, fundraising operations etc for their organizations.
on 5th August 2014, elements of the 7th Infantry Division, Nigerian Army, backed by light attack jets of the Nigerian Airforce, commenced an assault to dislodge combined Boko Haram forces in control of Damboa Town and surrounding areas in Damboa Local Government Area (LGA), of Borno State, that the insurgents captured earlier in July.
At the same time, the insurgents captured their second local government seat and urban settlement in WarZone South, when they seized Gwoza Town (population 72,000) the headquarters of the LGA of the same name and some 30-40km from the Cameroonian border.
Damboa Town
The military assault on Damboa followed the Damboa-Maiduguri Highway. Sources estimated that the military force was around 850 soldiers including 160 Special Forces operators (trained by US Special Forces- 10th Special Forces Group, and American Private Military Contractors paid for by the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, and interestingly, Homeland Security.
The insurgents on the other hand, had an estimated 1,000 fighters inside Damboa Town and some 3,000 men, in the other parts of the LGA. Insurgent forces were drawn strictly from Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin.
In a sign of the insurgents adaptability and symbiosis, sources tell me that the fighters originally in charge of defending Damboa were from the Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar, but they were pulled out on Friday 1st August and deployed to fight in the Gwoza battlefield, while the bulk of Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin forces ( probably 10,000 or 12,000 men combined total) were pulled out of the Cameroon Front, the Mandara Mountains and other areas of Northeast Nigeria, to hold, defend and consolidate insurgent controlled territory i.e WarZone South
The strategic reasoning behind the current offensive of the Boko Haram/Yusufiyya in Northern Cameroon and WarZone South is simple. The insurgents are creating ’liberated’ territory inside Nigeria, and establishing their authority on the ground. And after realizing that their policy of not antagonizing Yauonde was not paying off (since Cameroon under intense French, American and Nigerian pressure has been preparing to flush out the rear bases of Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin from its territory), the insurgents have opened a second front in Cameroon and carrying out a long prepared contingency plan to destabilize Northern Cameroon and secure their rear bases.
Calculating that Cameroon cannot withstand the pressure of fighting a sophisticated and rapidly growing insurgency, they are turning up the heat in Northern Cameroon gradually. Some sources say if Paul Biya (Cameroon’s President) does not take the not-so-subtle hint, Harakatul-Muhajiriin (undoubtedly the elite of the four Yusufiyya groups) may create a proxy Cameroonian militancy out of its several hundred Cameroonian operatives it has recruited and trained for fighting in Nigeria, and unleash it on Yaoude.
To be able to transition from insurgent forces to alternative states (like Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communists did in Yunnan during the Chinese Civil War and World War II), the rebels need to be able to move their camps and forces from Cameroon back cross the border to Nigeria (WarZone South), and they also need to be able to draw supplies and have a line of retreat/safe zone where they can always move back into inside Cameroon if their ‘liberated’ territories are ever in danger of being overrun by Nigerian forces. To establish facts-on-the-ground or de facto sovereign territory, which from all indications is Southern Borno and South Yobe (while their fellow Yusufis-whom they are wary of- Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Abubakar Shekau replicate the same strategy in North Yobe and parts of Northern Borno), the trio of Ansorul-Muslimiin, Harakatul-Muhajiriin and Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah (Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi) need to hold on to Damboa (which cuts off Maiduguri from South Borno), and Gwoza (which provides the most hardened and secure route –from a military perspective- into Cameroon, as the Nigerian Military is non-existent in these areas save some few outposts, while the terrain is mountainous and easily held).
The Nigerian Army assault on Damboa Town began before daylight on Tuesday 5th August 2014, with Special Forces (Nigerian Army) raids on insurgent outposts at the approaches of the town. Forewarned about the military’s battle plan, the Joint Yusufiyya commander of the town’s defenders, said by my sources to be Abu Musa Al-Jaali As-Sudani (real names unknown) a Sudanese commander in Harakatul-Muhajiriin, ordered a retreat from the indefensible outposts to the more defendable , while he and his men prepared to engage the attacking soldiers. The Special Forces raids were followed by aerial bombardment of rebel-held positions inside the town and surrounding areas by the 79 Composite Group and the 75th Strike Group of the Nigerian Airforce based in Maiduguri, which lasted thirty minutes.
The initial ground assault by the infantrymen of 7th Infantry Division backed by AFVs (Armoured Fighting Vehicles) and half a dozen T-55s/T-64s was engaged by the insurgents at Duniyari, and after several hours of fighting in which the insurgents employed RPG-7s (according to an Army source) and a few 9K11 Malyutka (NATO reporting name AT-3 Sagger) anti-tank missiles, the Army’s attack was repulsed. However this was a feint attack.
A simultaneous prong (containing the main force) was also launched at the time the Duniyari engagement began. Under aerial, gunship and artillery fire the advancing soldiers succeeded in entering Damboa Town, but met stiff resistance from the insurgents who used booby traps, RPGs, snipers and IEDs to slow the soldiers before fighters opened fire on them from inside houses (abandoned by their residents) and courtyard, and also from heavily entrenched positions. Using 12.5mm and 57mm Anti-Aircraft Artillery guns, rebels rendered impotent the air cover the Nigerian Airforce was providing to the Army (the NAF uses mostly Dornier Alpha Jets, MEB-339s, L-39s and F-7s, a few of the MEB-339s and Alpha Jets were the air cover for the battle, two were reportedly damaged by ground Triple A fire).
Despite Nigerian Government sponsored disinformation, sources on both sides confirm that 70% of Damboa Town is under rebel control, 10% is held by the Army, while 20% is contested.
However the situation is still very fluid and can change at any time. But as now, the whole of Damboa Town and surrounding areas are controlled by the rebels except the highway to Maiduguri.
NB: On the evening of Friday 8th and the morning of Saturday 9th insurgent counter-attacks pushed the Army out of Damboa totally and resulted in a retreat by the soldiers to Government-held positions along the highway to Maiduguri the state capital. Two US Army advisors were reportedly present at during the Nigerian Army’s assault, along with an unidentified American ‘civilian’ who was introduced as ‘William Reid’.
Analysis
While the men of the Nigerian Armed Forces are capable and willing of developing and sustaining an offensive (on paper) to recapture and recover areas lost to the rebels, they suffer from a lack of so many things including weapons, intelligence, manpower, funding and dedicated strategists and tacticians. Also the entire counter-insurgency/war-effort is being run by the clueless political class taking lessons and directives from the US, Israel, Britain and France, and having no idea of the strategic disaster facing Nigeria should the insurgents win.
Right now the insurgents are still trying to decide what they are and what they want. They do not know if they want to conquer the whole of Nigeria and establish their rule, they are not even sure what their rule is; if it is full-scale Shariah or some form of Shariah. They are in a strategic dilemma. Much as Ansorul-Muslimiin was formed to defend Muslims against plots by Christian militias backed American Christian Zionist Churches, the Israeli Mossad and fanatic Nigerian Christians, it does not know what to do in relation to the Christians, should it fight all Christians or only some Christians.
Even Shekau the leader of the most hardline of all the Yusufiyya groups faces this same strategic dilemma, he is also confused on whether to conquer the whole of Nigeria or a portion of it to create an ‘Islamic’ State, or if to fight to take the whole Northern Nigeria or just the Borno-Yobe axis. He doesn’t also know if to kill all the Christians in his territory or to expel them or to kill some of them to keep the others in line. He is still confused whether to wage war on all the Muslims who oppose him or not. Thus you have a situation where should somehow the Nigerian Government folds and these people find themselves in Abuja at this point in time, they do not know what to do. This leaves them vulnerable to manipulation, especially the less brutal trio of Khalid Al-Barnawi, Bukar Al-Barnawi and Abu Usamah Al-Ansori who may amenable to a political settlement that gives Shariah Law equal constitutional status with English Common Law which is rooted in Medieval Christianity, and that also gives them an equal share of political and military power.
However this situation cannot be taken advantage of in any way by the authorities as the entire counter-insurgency has been politicized completely by the incompetent political class. Content in looting defence and security budgets, while playing politics with the whole war effort and dancing to the American/Western/Israeli tune, they are assisted by equally incompetent, greedy, self-serving military and security chiefs appointed into office as thank-you rewards for their unflinching support of the ruling party (the PDP) and its policies. Unfortunately the main opposition party the APC, is as bad as the PDP. Utterly in the grip of the US (like most Nigerian establishments) it is made up mostly of the same corrupt and incompetent political actors who were infuriated when they were left out of some lucrative looting schemes and out of anger jumped ship to join forces with General Muhammad Buhari (widely respected and regarded as the only honest politician), to take advantage of his popularity.
While the whole war effort is being coordinated by incompetents and the professional officers corps either sidelined or laid-off, the insurgents are reportedly massing up forces and gaining more ground in Biu, Kaga, Askira-Uba, Chibok and Hawul LGAs, and preparing to push the Army out of these areas once and for all.
Once the Damboa and Gwoza battles are decisively completed, I expect the rebels to seize Chibok, Biu and Askira-Uba in slow but steady offensives, starting by clearing the small villages before moving in to push out the Army from the towns, before swinging their shock troops to consolidate their hold on their rear bases in Cameroon’s Far North. Already Biu and Askira-Uba LGAs are 90% under their control, save Askira Town in Askira-Uba LGA and Biu Town, Sabon Layi and Mangada Kallari in Biu LGA.
Gwoza Battle
The Battle of Gwoza began on Tuesday 5th August 2014, around 9:00pm. Hundreds of Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah/Sheikh Bukar fighters assaulted the town and headquarters of Gwoza LGA of Borno State in Toyota Pickups and armoured vehicles. The rebels first attacked the military base and police station, overrunning them and capturing some military and police personnel, before seizing the rest of the town and clearing the area of CJTF (Civilian Joint Task Force) militiamen. Scores of people marked by insurgent spies as collaborators and government spies were either killed or bundled into trucks and driven towards Damboa.
Most of the residents of the town have fled into the surrounding 1300m high Gwoza Hills or the higher Mandara Mountains. By 4:00am local time, the entire LGA was under insurgent control, with government troops forced to flee at all other outposts in the area that were attacked.
The Emir of Gwoza, the area’s traditiona head has not been seen sinced the rebels captured the town. Alhaji Muhmmad Idriss Timta replaced his father who was killed along with the Emir of Askira-Uba on May 30th, by the insurgents.
Also the bridge at Pulka south of Gwoza, has been blown by rebel demolition teams. This cuts off Gwoza and thus Bama LGA from Adamawa State to the south. With the fall of Gwoza Town and environs, Gwoza, Bama and Damboa LGAs are now fully under insurgent control, while Kaga, Chibok, Koduga, Kukawa, Marte, Ngala, Dikwa and other local government areas in Borno State (except Jere, Mafa, and Maiduguri) are heavily contested.
Cameroon
On 6th August 2014, Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah/Sheikh Bukar murder killed nine passengers on a bus in an exchange of fire with Cameroonian soldiers, in which a Cameroonian soldier also died. Two insurgents confirmed dead.
Cameroon is moving up to 4,000 soldiers including troops from the elite Rapid Intervention Battalion to its Far North Region to flush out Boko Haram fighters and camps in the area.
Amadou Ali the Cameroonian Vice PM whose wife was kidnapped earlier, is reported to have been targeted because he has a list of over 450 youths from Kolofata (is hometown where him and his wife were when the insurgents attempted to kidnap him but ended up taking his wife instead after he escaped into the bush), who have been recruited into the insurgency in Nigeria.
Cameroonian Intelligence confirms that some of the fighters who stormed Kolofata and kidnapped Cameroon’s Vice PM’s wife were locals who have joined the insurgents in Nigeria.
A source corroborates the involvement of Cameroonians in the insurgent groups, saying that Haraktul-Muhajiriin has emphasized on recruiting one Cameroonian, one Nigerien and one Chadian for every Nigerian it recruits, and that over the years it and Ansorul-Muslimiin have successfully recruited and trained over 3,000 Cameroonians, Nigeriens, Sudanese and Chadians, most of whom have fought in Nigeria, while several hundreds of these combat veterans have been sent home to run camps, safe houses, recruitment networks, armouries, fundraising operations etc for their organizations.
Monday, August 4, 2014
4th August Nigerian SITREP (General)
IMPORTANT
Nigerian Army alleges that explosives used by female suicide bombers in recent bomb attacks in Kano have been analysed and traced to a Chinese-run quarry in Yobe State of Northeast Nigeria that was overrun and seized by Boki Haram fighters last year.
However, none of the recent bombings involving female suicide bombers have been claimed by any of the Boko Haram groups.
Also sources in the Harakatul-Muhajiriin and its parent Ansorul-Muslimiin, have made it absolutely clear that they have nothing to do with the spate of female suicide bombers that terrorised Kano recently, they say they find the use of girls and women as suicide bombers reprehensible and they condemn it in its entirety as a "cowardly and desperate act that goes against the teachings of the Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf and the principles of Jihad Fii Sabilillah".
31st July: 10 year old girl wearing an explosive vest is arrested in Katsina State along with her handler who is a 19 year old female and a man driving a luxury SUV (Range Rover Sport) that brought the vest to the roadside where the 10 year old and her handler were waiting. More on that in a subsequent article In Shaa Allah.
Kano is hit by a fourth female suicide bomber in a week.
30th July: US Peace Corps evacuates volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea over Ebola fears, as West African leaders announce a joint $100million fund to tackle outbreak.
3rd August: Cholera kills several people from Borno State at a camp for displaced persons displaced by the ongoing combined Borno Haram offensive in the Damboa area. The camp for IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) is in Biu LGA where Jamaa'atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi holds sway.
Nigeria's Federal Government claims to have raised N60billion or $480million at a rich-only banquet/fundraiser for the Victims of Terror Support Fund launched by President Jonathan in Abuja recently. Critics slam the whole exercise as a parade of who is who in corruption in Nigeria, especially as Governor Rocha's Okorocha of IMO State was forced to cancel his earlier pledge of N10million or $55,000 and donate $10million or N1.67billion by President Jonathan, despite that this huge sum was not included in IMO State's budget for the year, nor was it approved by lawmakers in the state.
Nigerian Shia leader Sheikh Ibrahim Az-Zakzaki(Zakzaky) announces that rather than immediately resort to violence which may lead to fatal consequences for the country, he and his followers will first seek redress in court for the murder of his sons and dozens of his followers by the Nigerian military.
Cameroon's president, Paul Biya, dispatches his military chief to the Far North Region to along with more troops to stabilize the situation in that area with regard to the threat from Boko Haram (Harakatul-Muhajiriin and Ansorul-Muslimiin are the groups operating in that region).
Nigerian Army alleges that explosives used by female suicide bombers in recent bomb attacks in Kano have been analysed and traced to a Chinese-run quarry in Yobe State of Northeast Nigeria that was overrun and seized by Boki Haram fighters last year.
However, none of the recent bombings involving female suicide bombers have been claimed by any of the Boko Haram groups.
Also sources in the Harakatul-Muhajiriin and its parent Ansorul-Muslimiin, have made it absolutely clear that they have nothing to do with the spate of female suicide bombers that terrorised Kano recently, they say they find the use of girls and women as suicide bombers reprehensible and they condemn it in its entirety as a "cowardly and desperate act that goes against the teachings of the Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf and the principles of Jihad Fii Sabilillah".
31st July: 10 year old girl wearing an explosive vest is arrested in Katsina State along with her handler who is a 19 year old female and a man driving a luxury SUV (Range Rover Sport) that brought the vest to the roadside where the 10 year old and her handler were waiting. More on that in a subsequent article In Shaa Allah.
Kano is hit by a fourth female suicide bomber in a week.
30th July: US Peace Corps evacuates volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea over Ebola fears, as West African leaders announce a joint $100million fund to tackle outbreak.
3rd August: Cholera kills several people from Borno State at a camp for displaced persons displaced by the ongoing combined Borno Haram offensive in the Damboa area. The camp for IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) is in Biu LGA where Jamaa'atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi holds sway.
Nigeria's Federal Government claims to have raised N60billion or $480million at a rich-only banquet/fundraiser for the Victims of Terror Support Fund launched by President Jonathan in Abuja recently. Critics slam the whole exercise as a parade of who is who in corruption in Nigeria, especially as Governor Rocha's Okorocha of IMO State was forced to cancel his earlier pledge of N10million or $55,000 and donate $10million or N1.67billion by President Jonathan, despite that this huge sum was not included in IMO State's budget for the year, nor was it approved by lawmakers in the state.
Nigerian Shia leader Sheikh Ibrahim Az-Zakzaki(Zakzaky) announces that rather than immediately resort to violence which may lead to fatal consequences for the country, he and his followers will first seek redress in court for the murder of his sons and dozens of his followers by the Nigerian military.
Cameroon's president, Paul Biya, dispatches his military chief to the Far North Region to along with more troops to stabilize the situation in that area with regard to the threat from Boko Haram (Harakatul-Muhajiriin and Ansorul-Muslimiin are the groups operating in that region).
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
29TH July 2014 Nigeria SITREP (Boko Haram and General)
29TH July 2014 Nigeria SITREP (Boko Haram and General)
Kano
26th July: Two bomb attacks utilizing IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) hit kano. The first blast was carried out by a teenage female suicide bomber at a university temporary facility. Only the suicide bomber was killed.
The second attack was also by a suicide bomber at a Church in Sabon Gari District, killing 6 people including the bomber. Among the casualties were a soldier, two men, a lady and a child.
27th July: A woman detonates explosives strapped to her body in Hotoro District of Kano metropolis, ……………..women who had lined up to buy kerosene, killing four and injuring dozens..
Another female bomber blew herself up at the entrance of an International Trade Fair Complex in Kano metropolis, killing several policemen and more than a dozen others badly injured.
NOTE: No one has claimed responsibility for these attacks. Kano state, in Northwest Nigeria is far outside the traditional Boko Haram area of operations, but it hosts a significant presence of Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi. The state Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso is also an opposition party chieftain and amongst the fiercest critics of the President, Goodluck Jonathan.
Adamawa
26th July: Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajirin fighters stormed Garkida town of Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State. Official report indicates that 2 soldiers and 4 other people were killed. However, sources in the Military intelligence confirmed that the death toll was 2 dozen soldier and policemen.
Cameroon
26th July: Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin elite forces stormed the Northern Cameroonian town of Kolofata and kidnapped the wife of the Cameroonian Vice Prime Minister and the Lamido of Kolafata, a local Fulani/Fulfude tribal chief and local religious leader, Seini Boukar Lamine.
I believe that the two kidnapped persons would have been taken across the border into Nigeria’s side of the Adamawa mountains where Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin both maintain extensive infrastructure.
While the US has made offer to help, Nigeria and Cameroon made it clear that US drones (Surveillance or otherwise) are not welcome in their airspaces. However, Joint Ariel Reconnaissance flights are already up and running as part of the two countries security cooperation, while British, French and American recon planes would join the aerial part of the search for the kidnapped victims.
29th July (Added): BBC Hausa Service reports that Cameroonian soldiers had in a six-hour operation rescued the wife of Amadou Ali, Cameroon’s Vice PM , who was kidnapped days earlier. sixteen people are reported to have died during the operation.
Yobe
28th July: More than a hundred fighters from Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Abubakar Shekau attack Katarko Village in Yobe State of Northeast Nigeria, killing about eight persons and destroying the sole bridge linking the area around the village with the rest of Nigeria. The attack took place around 7:30pm. Soldiers at a military outpost in the village fled into the bush after engaging the insurgents for a while, due to what they described as the insurgents “overwhelming superior firepower, which they were not equipped to deal with at all”. As usual the Airforce was nowhere to be found.
EBOLA OUTBREAK
The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health and the Lagos State Ministry of Health have confirmed that Patrick Sawyer the Liberian who confirmed to have died in Lagos of Ebola (the first reported case) came in the direct contact with 59 people from his arrival at the airport in Lagos. Lagos State Health Commissioner Jide Idris revealed this at a press conference on 28th July 2014.
The persons include 44 contacts at the hospital he was taken to, 38 of whom were health workers and 6 laboratory staff, 15 contacts at the airport including 3 ECOWAS officials, 2 nursing staff at the airport, 5 airport handlers and the Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia.
The State government in Lagos have also begun taking proactive measures to prepare Lagos for more Ebola cases arriving in Nigeria via the state which is Nigeria’s first port of entry for most visitors. These measures include creating an Isolation Ward at the Yaba Infectious Diseases Centre in Yaba, Lagos, with plans to quickly expand the isolation wards to three. An Incident Command Centre to coordinate the state’s Rapid Response Team on Ebola has also been established.
Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for Liberia’s Finance Ministry in his 40s, collapsed on arrival at the Murtala Muhammad Airport in Lagos on July 20th and was put in isolation at the First Consultants Hospital (which has since been shut down and the staff under quarantine) in Obalende, Lagos. He died on Friday.
P.S
To Nora, while I have done and I usually do serious thinking on the underlying dynamics of what is going on, which The Saker knows, however I must decline to share my thoughts on them. One, I am trying to cram several lifetimes into one and this is a very extensive subject that I am not sure I can handle via commenting on The Saker’s blog . Two, my role here is to provide straight forward reportage and a little piece of situational analysis, uncoloured by politics. I consciously avoid mixing my views into what I write as I wish to avoid propaganda/biased reporting. It is left to the reader to choose their own politics free of any manipulation by me.
To From India, I have it on good authority that the three Lebanese-Nigerians arrested in Abuja last year have all been released, while those arrested in Kano are still supposedly in the custody of the Directorate/Department Of State Security.
To those who say nor insinuate that my SITREPS are paid for by the Saudi government, I can only say that fools abound everywhere mostly under Anonymous online handles.
To everyone, I, like The Saker, Mindfriedo, and Juan to the best of my knowledge, volunteer (our) time, resources and energy to do this for free. I appreciate the tremendous volume of interest in my SITREPs and I thank you all.
My purpose is to keep all of you informed of the true state of things here no matter how bitter that truth is to me personally, and I pray I do a good job with that I mind.
I have lost dearest friends and my wife has lost a cousin to this Boko Haram War that neither us nor our lost loved ones asked for, all of them killed by either the government or the insurgents. However, I will not In Shaa Allah because of my emotional hurt slant my SITREPs to reflect anything other than the truth. Thank you all and God Help mankind through this dark era. Amin
Kano
26th July: Two bomb attacks utilizing IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) hit kano. The first blast was carried out by a teenage female suicide bomber at a university temporary facility. Only the suicide bomber was killed.
The second attack was also by a suicide bomber at a Church in Sabon Gari District, killing 6 people including the bomber. Among the casualties were a soldier, two men, a lady and a child.
27th July: A woman detonates explosives strapped to her body in Hotoro District of Kano metropolis, ……………..women who had lined up to buy kerosene, killing four and injuring dozens..
Another female bomber blew herself up at the entrance of an International Trade Fair Complex in Kano metropolis, killing several policemen and more than a dozen others badly injured.
NOTE: No one has claimed responsibility for these attacks. Kano state, in Northwest Nigeria is far outside the traditional Boko Haram area of operations, but it hosts a significant presence of Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi. The state Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso is also an opposition party chieftain and amongst the fiercest critics of the President, Goodluck Jonathan.
Adamawa
26th July: Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajirin fighters stormed Garkida town of Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State. Official report indicates that 2 soldiers and 4 other people were killed. However, sources in the Military intelligence confirmed that the death toll was 2 dozen soldier and policemen.
Cameroon
26th July: Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin elite forces stormed the Northern Cameroonian town of Kolofata and kidnapped the wife of the Cameroonian Vice Prime Minister and the Lamido of Kolafata, a local Fulani/Fulfude tribal chief and local religious leader, Seini Boukar Lamine.
I believe that the two kidnapped persons would have been taken across the border into Nigeria’s side of the Adamawa mountains where Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin both maintain extensive infrastructure.
While the US has made offer to help, Nigeria and Cameroon made it clear that US drones (Surveillance or otherwise) are not welcome in their airspaces. However, Joint Ariel Reconnaissance flights are already up and running as part of the two countries security cooperation, while British, French and American recon planes would join the aerial part of the search for the kidnapped victims.
29th July (Added): BBC Hausa Service reports that Cameroonian soldiers had in a six-hour operation rescued the wife of Amadou Ali, Cameroon’s Vice PM , who was kidnapped days earlier. sixteen people are reported to have died during the operation.
Yobe
28th July: More than a hundred fighters from Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Abubakar Shekau attack Katarko Village in Yobe State of Northeast Nigeria, killing about eight persons and destroying the sole bridge linking the area around the village with the rest of Nigeria. The attack took place around 7:30pm. Soldiers at a military outpost in the village fled into the bush after engaging the insurgents for a while, due to what they described as the insurgents “overwhelming superior firepower, which they were not equipped to deal with at all”. As usual the Airforce was nowhere to be found.
EBOLA OUTBREAK
The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health and the Lagos State Ministry of Health have confirmed that Patrick Sawyer the Liberian who confirmed to have died in Lagos of Ebola (the first reported case) came in the direct contact with 59 people from his arrival at the airport in Lagos. Lagos State Health Commissioner Jide Idris revealed this at a press conference on 28th July 2014.
The persons include 44 contacts at the hospital he was taken to, 38 of whom were health workers and 6 laboratory staff, 15 contacts at the airport including 3 ECOWAS officials, 2 nursing staff at the airport, 5 airport handlers and the Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia.
The State government in Lagos have also begun taking proactive measures to prepare Lagos for more Ebola cases arriving in Nigeria via the state which is Nigeria’s first port of entry for most visitors. These measures include creating an Isolation Ward at the Yaba Infectious Diseases Centre in Yaba, Lagos, with plans to quickly expand the isolation wards to three. An Incident Command Centre to coordinate the state’s Rapid Response Team on Ebola has also been established.
Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for Liberia’s Finance Ministry in his 40s, collapsed on arrival at the Murtala Muhammad Airport in Lagos on July 20th and was put in isolation at the First Consultants Hospital (which has since been shut down and the staff under quarantine) in Obalende, Lagos. He died on Friday.
P.S
To Nora, while I have done and I usually do serious thinking on the underlying dynamics of what is going on, which The Saker knows, however I must decline to share my thoughts on them. One, I am trying to cram several lifetimes into one and this is a very extensive subject that I am not sure I can handle via commenting on The Saker’s blog . Two, my role here is to provide straight forward reportage and a little piece of situational analysis, uncoloured by politics. I consciously avoid mixing my views into what I write as I wish to avoid propaganda/biased reporting. It is left to the reader to choose their own politics free of any manipulation by me.
To those who say nor insinuate that my SITREPS are paid for by the Saudi government, I can only say that fools abound everywhere mostly under Anonymous online handles.
To everyone, I, like The Saker, Mindfriedo, and Juan to the best of my knowledge, volunteer (our) time, resources and energy to do this for free. I appreciate the tremendous volume of interest in my SITREPs and I thank you all.
My purpose is to keep all of you informed of the true state of things here no matter how bitter that truth is to me personally, and I pray I do a good job with that I mind.
I have lost dearest friends and my wife has lost a cousin to this Boko Haram War that neither us nor our lost loved ones asked for, all of them killed by either the government or the insurgents. However, I will not In Shaa Allah because of my emotional hurt slant my SITREPs to reflect anything other than the truth. Thank you all and God Help mankind through this dark era. Amin
Monday, July 28, 2014
July 27th Nigerian SITREP (General And Boko Haram) by Fulan Nasrullah
23rd July 2014: Two bomb attacks hit Kaduna City the capital of Kaduna State about 200 Km north of Abuja. The first blast struck Murtal Square (a public square in the city’s central area while thousands of Sufi Muslims were exiting it after attending the last Ramadan lecture of Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, Nigeria’s leading Sufi cleric of the Tijjaniyyah Toriqoh (Path). Over 100 people die.
The official narrative is that the Murtala Square bombing was aimed at Sheikh Bauchi, but at the time the attack took place, the Sheikh had been gone from there for almost an hour. Thirty minutes before the blast, a trustworthy friend of mine who was taking his wife to the 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital in Kaduna (were the bodies and injured from both attacks would later be taken to), for her appointment with the doctor was held up for several minutes near Sheikh Bauchi’s house in Tudun Wada district of Kaduna, as the Sheikh and his massive entourage were moving across the junction into the road that leads to his house.
The Sheikh’s house is 3-4km away from Murtala Square, so by no chance was he around the square when the bomb went off. Preliminary investigations indicate the bomb was contained in a bag and was activated by radio remote.
The second blast was a VBED (Vehicle Borne Explosive Device) and was clearly aimed at General Muhammad Buhari, ex-military ruler, three time presidential candidate, highly regarded as one of two honest leaders Nigeria ever had 9the other being the late Murtala Muhammad), the most popular political figure alive today in Nigeria, and the person who most likely will unseat President Jonathan in next year’s elections.
The General was travelling from Kaduna to his hometown of Daura in neighbouring Katsina State when the attack occurred at Kawo, a district in Kaduna Metropolis.
According to the General, when he left his house in a three car convoy, he was informed by his Chief Security Officer that another vehicle has been spotted trailing behind them. As they entered into Kawo District, the new car accelerated and tried to ram into the car carrying the General, but was prevented by the convoy’s escort car which quickly assumed a blocking position, so it pulled off at the last moment. It would return to try again and again, chasing after the convoy which had switched to emergency security protocols as the General’s C.S.O rightly suspected an assassination attempt.
The blocking and chasing would go on for nearly 10-15mins until the chase reached Kawo Market and Motor Park and at to slow down because of a traffic Jam near the overpass there. At that moment, the VBED took advantage of the relaxiation of speed by the convoy and accelerated from the side towards the General’s car, slamming into the lead car which had maneuvered and intercepted its charge, before exploding. Over 39 deaths follow with scores reported injured.
Eyewitnesses insists that after the VBED detonated, a detachment of soldiers who had been waiting beneath the overpass opened fire on the General’s car and the surrounding area, leaving bullet marks on the armoured SUV (shown in picture) and killing most of those reported dead in the attack. Bullet riddled bodies were also alleged to have been picked up by the military and taken to the 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital at Comilla Barracks.
Another twist entered the whole incident when the driver of the VBED jumped out of the vehicle as it accelerated towards the General’s car and executed a dive-roll before trying to escape into the fleeing crowd. However he/she (I will explain) was captured by some youths who noted his /her dramatic exit from the vehicle, and they would have lynched him to death if not for the General’s surviving escorts who took him/her from the crowd and (when they arrived) handed him/her to the ssoldiers and police reinforcements.
The attacker who drove the VBED turned out to be a man who dressed up in pseudo-Muslim women’s dress (Muslim women in Kaduna don’t dress like you see him dress in the picture) complete with a pumped up bra. At first the military and police authorities tried to deny his arrest but admitted to it after pictures of him being escorted to an Otokar APC belonging to the military surfaced on social media.
Reaction Of The Citizenry
The general perception amongst people in most areas of Northern Nigeria is that the attempt on General Buhari’s life was ordered by the Presidency, while a few believe the President would not be so stupid as to even think of killing this man whose death had it happened in the attack would have triggered widespread chaos that would have engulfed this country in flames. A minority believe that the attack was orchestrated by a ‘third-party’ interested in sowing the seeds of a civil war, knowing that people would quickly jump to blame President Jonathan.
However the universal belief I have encountered in various interviews, social media, talkshows or press statements by various individuals is that the earlier attack on Murtala Square was a diversion to to tie the whole thing to Boko Haram, and disguise it as ‘Islamic extremism’.
Should that be the case, such an alleged Boko Haram tie has been discredited since it is well known that the Boko Haram groups have absolutely no benefit from killing the General nor do they have any reason to want to kill him. They respect him and praise him as a ‘honest and principled man’. As a matter of fact, when the Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi wanted to hold negotiations with the Federal government, he was the only one they accepted from the government side as he was the only person they could accept as ‘trustworthy, honest, incorruptible and impartial’.
Kano Bombings
24th July 2014: Two small bombs went of at a bus park and near a popular local cinema (El Dorado Cinemas) respectively in Sabon Gari district of Kano Metropolis. Two people confirmed dead.
Damboa/WarZone South
23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th July 2014: Nigerian Army makes several attempts to recapture Damboa Township and surrounding areas. A dozen or more troops are killed and the soldiers are forced to retreat due to the heavier firepower of the rebels.
Meanwhile, fighters from Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Abubakar Shekau attack several villages in Biu LGA, killing over 72 people including 62 civilians and more than 10 CJTF (Civilian Joint Taskforce) fighters Hundreds evacuate to safer areas.
Zaria
25th July 2014: Soldiers open fire on a peaceful procession of Shias and Sunnis marching in solidarity with the people of Gaza, killing over 40 people including women and children The march in Zaria (60km north of Kaduna City) was organized by.the Islamic Movement, a politico-religious group of Shias, Sufis and Sunnis run by Sheikh Ibrahim Az-Zakzaki (Zakzaky) the leader of Shias in Nigeria. Amongst the dead are Mahmud Zakzaky a son of the Sheikh, a friend of mine who was part of the procession and a woman who was shot along with her baby on her back. Two more friends of mine and over a hundred people were dragged into detention.
By 10:00pm same day news emerged that Ahmad Zakzaky another son of the Sheikh who was shot and also detained had died in military custody. Sheikh Zakzaky who later address the press in the evening on 26th July and confirm reports that the soldiers came to his house and picked up three of his sons; Hamid, Ali and Ahmad, and that all three were shot, while Ahmad and Hamid had died in custody earlier in the day.
Sources have confirmed that previous reports that the soldiers who carried out the shootings and arrests were not part of the regular units deployed in Zaria or Kaduna which is the headquarters of the 1st Mechanized Division (that has operational control over Zaria), rather they were from Abuja based units under the Brigade Of Guards. Other sources confirmed that they had the insignia and flashes of the 176 Special Forces Battalion, the special operations element of the Brigade Of Guards, trained by United States Special Operations Command subordinate units. On the morning of 26th soldiers passed by a study centre of the Shia which also houses an office of the Islamic Movement and sprayed gun fire into the building killing three more people.
Gyallesu the suburb of Zaria where Sheikh Zakzaky and the Shia in Nigeria have their headquarters was cordoned off for a shortwhile but has now been re-opened, however there is still a heavy military presence and the situation in Zari remains very tense.
Sheikh Zakzaky and his followers have for years maintained a trained but informal small militia that has upto a thousand fighters. They are also known to maintain an extensive small arms arsenal plus substantial amounts of crew served weapons. Iran since 1998 has assisted the Sheikh with weapons and advisers. However apart from some minor clashes which nearly led to heavy fighting between Shias and Izala Muslims several years back over the Shia practice of cursing Aisha (RA) and the Compaions of the Prophet (SAWS),a practice which is widespread amongst Nigerian Shia but has been condemned by Ayatullah Khamenei Iran’s Supreme Leader in one of his fatawa (fatwas), Zakzaky and his followers have not turned their weapons on anyone.
The fear now is that this attack on Zakzaky and his followers may end up leadig to another Boko Haram insurgency, and this is a widely shared sentinment.
In 2009 Muhammad Yusuf and his followers were attacked by soldiers several times while they were in funeral processions to go and bury their dead., until they could take the repeated unjustified murder of their people and they rioted, an opportunity which the Nigerian government seized to launch a full scale assault on the Yusufiyya members based on faulty intelligence supplied to Nigeria by the US, UK and Israel.
-------
Pictures of the VBED driver who dressed up as a female Muslim:
Bullet riddled SUV of General Buhari:
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
July 22nd Nigeria SITREP (Boko Haram) by Fulan Nasrullah
Dear friends,
Today I have the pleasure to announce a new regular feature on this blog, a weekly SITREP about the Boko Haram movement and the conflict in Nigeria which has potential regional consequences. This weekly SITREP will be written by 'Fulan Nasrullah', an ex-intelligence analyst and private intelligence contractor who is now an Imam of the Ahlus-Sunnah Wal-Jamaa'ah/Salafiyyah of Sunni Islam and a resident of Northern Nigeria. No doubt, this will expose us to a very different view of Islam than the mostly Shia view which this blog is (correctly) known to have sympathies with. As always, Fulan Nasrullah's views are his own and I post them here because I believe that they are interesting, not because I endorse them.
The Saker
-------
First, a short introduction: Who Are Boko Haram?
1. They are not one group but rather several seperate groups who follow the Yusufiyya ideology founded by Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf.
2. The sect was established in 2002 by Sheikh Yusuf a controversial cleric who was Sufi and became Shia and then became traditionalist Sunni before espousing his own ideology that called for boycotting Modern Education schools in Nigeria until such lies and blasphemies such as the theories of evolution are removed from textbooks. He also called for his followers to segregate themselves and establish their own parallel institutions i.e schools, hospitals, courts etc.
3. Military operations ordered against the sect in 2009 based on false intelligence supplied to Nigeria by the CIA, SIS and Mossad, and serious American diplomatic pressure mounted on Nigeria's political leadership at the time. This assault on the hitherto peaceful movement in July 2009, would lead to the deaths of several thousand residents of Maiduguri, many of whom had no relationship to the sect or were Christians, would spark off the current war after Sheikh Yusuf surrendered to the Police and was tortured and killed in custody before his body was thrown out to his supporters gathered outside the Police headquarters in Maiduguri.
4. By 2011 group had split into four factions united in their ideology and their waging of a war against the Nigerian State.
5. Over 5million people affected in the three North-Eastern Nigerian states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, including thousands displaced.
6. Collectively the sect's factions have carried out scores of bomb attacks across the country, on mosques, churches, shopping malls, the National Police headquarters, the UN country headquarters etc. The factions have also carried out jail breaks to free thousands of their fighters and relatives held in prisons across the country.
7. Declared terrorist organizations in 2013 and 2014 by the US with both US and UN sanctions in place. the leaders of some of the factions have bounties on their heads of millions of dollars placed by the US and Nigeria.
Nigeria SITREP (Boko Haram)
Damboa: A Turning Point.
Background
Damboa is a town and local government area (County or Parish to non-Nigerians) roughly 85km (53miles) south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in North-East Nigeria. The local government area (LGA) hosts a population of around 350,00 persons with up to 80,000 in Damboa Town itself.
Damboa Town has a full Army Infantry battalion (Motorized) deployed in it along with up to a hundred police men of the Nigerian Police Force based there too. For two weeks a continuous under-reported battle has been raging with there with the Yusufiyya/Boko Haram groups (Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi, Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Abubakar Shekau, Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin) joining forces and lunching a combined assault involving at least three full infantry battalion-size units (Nigerian standard= 510 per battalion).
Before this assault, the combined Yusufiyya forces had launched their first conventional campaign in April this year that had seen them push the military out of Talasla, Ajigin, Mangozam, Abima, and Kworua, thus cutting off Damboa Town (these villages are all around Damboa Tow) except for the highway northwards to Maiduguri that is still under government control, although extremely risky to use for non-military transports. The assault on Damboa Town was the culmination of this campaign.
The battle for Damboa Town began on 25th June when insurgent forces comprised mostly of Harakatul-Muhajiriin and some Ansorul-Muslimiin fighters, overran a military post 5km outside the town killing 21 soldiers and wounding dozens more. Hours later hundreds of insurgents (this time mostly from Ansorul-Muslimiin with the two Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar and Abubakar Shekau supplying a minority of the fighters) in Toyota pickups and utilizing dozens of captured Otokar APCs and BTR-3s would storm the town following intensive shelling from 75mm recoiless rifles and 81mm mortars for an hour or so.
The initial push into town would leave up to 30 soldiers dead including the battalion commander Lt. Col Shonva and the insurgents would press the attack until 5:00AM 26th June when they would break off the attack leaving a further 20 policemen dead in their wake including the local police commander.
Pulling back the insurgents instead concentrated on harassing government forces inside town with sniper and mortar attacks, until the soldiers and policemen began a controlled pullout. On July 7th, they again launched full scale combat operations (with increased troop strength on their part), overrunning the Army barracks after several hours of fighting which culminated in a full scale retreat by the soldiers. some 53 insurgents and 31 soldiers are killed and over a hundred more soldiers are injured, many of them badly. After the retreat of the Army to positions northwards along the highway to Maiduguri, it emerged that the rebels captured the battalion’s armouries almost intact many of which were newly delivered including dozens of APCs, 57.5mm Anti-Aircraft guns, hundreds of GPMGs, over fifty RPG-7 with several hundred rockets, over a hundred anti-tank missiles and some launchers, dozens of towed 75mm and 105mm howitzers with several thousand shells etc.
Following the rout and retreat of the Army and the Police, the defence of the town fell to local civil defence militias aka Civilian Joint Task Forces (CJTFs). Sevral thousand CJTF fighters from Maiduguri and other nearby towns and cities poured into Damboa by 10th July, setting off Phase IV of the fighting.
Airforce jets drop some bombs on 10th and 11th July, but the Airforce High Command soon rules out further operations due to heavy Anti-Aircraft flak from insurgent positions.
Army launches operations to re-enter and retake the town on 11th and 13th July, but the operations are called off after advancing troops are ambushed along Damboa-Biu and Damboa-Maiduguri highways by fighters from Harakatul-Muhajiriin and Ansorul-Muslimiin. At least a dozen troops are killed.
On 16th July, reports surface from Damboa Town that Khalid Al-Barnawi and over three hundred ‘shock troops’ from Harakatul-Muhajiriin have arrived to take charge of rooting the several thousand CJTF fighters in the town. Al-Barnawi is the Amir/Leader of Harakatul-Muhajiriin Wal-Mujahidiin (Movement Of Those Who Have Migrated And Those Who Strive/Struggle) the most capable of all the insurgent forces battling the government collectively named Boko Haram.
On 17th July, combined Boko Haram forces launch offensive combat operations to clear the CJTF forces from their positions in the town. This operations are spearheaded by Harakatul-Muhajiriin’s elite commandos wth Khalid Al-Barnawi said to be the theatre commander.
Fighting rages throughout the whole day and night of 17th July, well into the next morning. Local media reports an unspecified number of people were killed and most of the town’s few remaining residents (many of the civilians had already run away when the campaign began) had fled into the bushes.
CJTF commanders acknowledge that most of the town is under insurgent control (18th July) with the Imam of the town and the local government chairman dying in the fighting, and possibly ‘hundreds’ of their men killed in the last phase of the battle. Most of the town is in ruins. Bodies are still being collected of CJTF personnel (19th July). Military sources confirm the defeat but decline to give casualty figures.
Importance Of This Battle
Attached to this SITREP is a map showing Borno State and its various local government areas (LGAs, counties/parishes for non-Nigerians). Damboa is southwards from Maiduguri and north of Chibok where over 200 girls were abducted two months ago. It runs across the state like a belt from the Cameroun-Nigeria border area (and Lake Chad with the Republic of Chad just across on the other side) to Yobe State where the Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah factions of Sheikh Bukar and Abubakar Shekau both maintain significant presence. Already with most of Biu, Chibok, Gwoza and Askira-Uba LGAs under insurgent control except for the towns, the fall of Damboa creates a contiguous territory for the rebels which I will henceforth refer to as WarZone South.
WarZone South is ‘liberated’ territory running from the Adamawa Mountains (and insurgent safe havens and bases in Adamawa State and Northern Cameroun), to the southern part of Yobe State (Westwards from Borno).
This is the opposite of WarZone North which runs from the Chadian border at Bama, northwards through Ngala, Monguno, Kukawa and Abadam LGAs of Borno State (see map) across the inter-state boundary into Northern Yobe State.
The capture of Damboa represents a significant escalation and a strategic shift in the war. It is the first time the Boko Haram groups have jointly or individually launched a conventional operation, and also the first time they have come together and it was not to carry out a prison break. It is also the first time they have seized an urban centre and held on to it. This campaign marks a shift from their hit and run attacks to wear down government troops to a new phase of capturing and holding on to territory.
Simultaneously with the campaign to carve out territory in WarZone South, fighters have also been moving their bases in the inaccessible Mandara Mountains and Sambisa Forests and across the border in the Republic of Niger, to push out government forces from the strip of territory I have named WarZone North. I expect a major battle may soon be fought there.
The shift from guerilla operations to conventional warfare has been dramatic. Soldiers who have engaged the insurgents throughout the Damboa campaign and the battle for Damboa Town, have testified that they have employed complex tactics unlike before. They have for the first time taken to the field in regimental-size formations and have displayed remarkable command and control capabilities which the Army (amongst many other things) seems to lack.
The capture of Damboa Town and the clearing out of government forces from WarZone South has effectively cut off Maiduguri from Southern Borno, and with insurgent guerillas very active in Konduga LGA (see map), the capital of the state is gradually getting surrounded.
If Damboa is any indication of things to come, the Boko Haram/Yusufiyya groups are going to launch more combined operations, pushing out outwards from WarZones North and South, clearing rural ares of government troops and isolating them in towns before launching large-scale assaults to push them out of those towns until both WarZones meet in the Maiduguri-Jere axis (see map), thus leaving Maiduguri City surrounded by insurgent positions and rebel-held territory.
While the Army has tried to recapture Damboa, they have found themselves outmaneuvered by the rebels. Despite being overstretched on all fronts and lacking weaponry and equipment (this is due to massive entrenched corruption bleeding the $10billion defence budget dry), the Military’s greatest problem is that strategically speaking they are ten steps behind the insurgents. The rebels dictate the battle pace, and the course of the whole war. The strategic initiative is with them and the Military can only react to their moves. Already the Damboa Campaign has left the government confused on the response to give.
Today I have the pleasure to announce a new regular feature on this blog, a weekly SITREP about the Boko Haram movement and the conflict in Nigeria which has potential regional consequences. This weekly SITREP will be written by 'Fulan Nasrullah', an ex-intelligence analyst and private intelligence contractor who is now an Imam of the Ahlus-Sunnah Wal-Jamaa'ah/Salafiyyah of Sunni Islam and a resident of Northern Nigeria. No doubt, this will expose us to a very different view of Islam than the mostly Shia view which this blog is (correctly) known to have sympathies with. As always, Fulan Nasrullah's views are his own and I post them here because I believe that they are interesting, not because I endorse them.
The Saker
-------
First, a short introduction: Who Are Boko Haram?
1. They are not one group but rather several seperate groups who follow the Yusufiyya ideology founded by Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf.
2. The sect was established in 2002 by Sheikh Yusuf a controversial cleric who was Sufi and became Shia and then became traditionalist Sunni before espousing his own ideology that called for boycotting Modern Education schools in Nigeria until such lies and blasphemies such as the theories of evolution are removed from textbooks. He also called for his followers to segregate themselves and establish their own parallel institutions i.e schools, hospitals, courts etc.
3. Military operations ordered against the sect in 2009 based on false intelligence supplied to Nigeria by the CIA, SIS and Mossad, and serious American diplomatic pressure mounted on Nigeria's political leadership at the time. This assault on the hitherto peaceful movement in July 2009, would lead to the deaths of several thousand residents of Maiduguri, many of whom had no relationship to the sect or were Christians, would spark off the current war after Sheikh Yusuf surrendered to the Police and was tortured and killed in custody before his body was thrown out to his supporters gathered outside the Police headquarters in Maiduguri.
4. By 2011 group had split into four factions united in their ideology and their waging of a war against the Nigerian State.
5. Over 5million people affected in the three North-Eastern Nigerian states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, including thousands displaced.
6. Collectively the sect's factions have carried out scores of bomb attacks across the country, on mosques, churches, shopping malls, the National Police headquarters, the UN country headquarters etc. The factions have also carried out jail breaks to free thousands of their fighters and relatives held in prisons across the country.
7. Declared terrorist organizations in 2013 and 2014 by the US with both US and UN sanctions in place. the leaders of some of the factions have bounties on their heads of millions of dollars placed by the US and Nigeria.
Nigeria SITREP (Boko Haram)
Damboa: A Turning Point.
Background
Damboa is a town and local government area (County or Parish to non-Nigerians) roughly 85km (53miles) south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in North-East Nigeria. The local government area (LGA) hosts a population of around 350,00 persons with up to 80,000 in Damboa Town itself.
Damboa Town has a full Army Infantry battalion (Motorized) deployed in it along with up to a hundred police men of the Nigerian Police Force based there too. For two weeks a continuous under-reported battle has been raging with there with the Yusufiyya/Boko Haram groups (Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar Al-Barnawi, Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Abubakar Shekau, Ansorul-Muslimiin and Harakatul-Muhajiriin) joining forces and lunching a combined assault involving at least three full infantry battalion-size units (Nigerian standard= 510 per battalion).
Before this assault, the combined Yusufiyya forces had launched their first conventional campaign in April this year that had seen them push the military out of Talasla, Ajigin, Mangozam, Abima, and Kworua, thus cutting off Damboa Town (these villages are all around Damboa Tow) except for the highway northwards to Maiduguri that is still under government control, although extremely risky to use for non-military transports. The assault on Damboa Town was the culmination of this campaign.
The battle for Damboa Town began on 25th June when insurgent forces comprised mostly of Harakatul-Muhajiriin and some Ansorul-Muslimiin fighters, overran a military post 5km outside the town killing 21 soldiers and wounding dozens more. Hours later hundreds of insurgents (this time mostly from Ansorul-Muslimiin with the two Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah of Sheikh Bukar and Abubakar Shekau supplying a minority of the fighters) in Toyota pickups and utilizing dozens of captured Otokar APCs and BTR-3s would storm the town following intensive shelling from 75mm recoiless rifles and 81mm mortars for an hour or so.
The initial push into town would leave up to 30 soldiers dead including the battalion commander Lt. Col Shonva and the insurgents would press the attack until 5:00AM 26th June when they would break off the attack leaving a further 20 policemen dead in their wake including the local police commander.
Pulling back the insurgents instead concentrated on harassing government forces inside town with sniper and mortar attacks, until the soldiers and policemen began a controlled pullout. On July 7th, they again launched full scale combat operations (with increased troop strength on their part), overrunning the Army barracks after several hours of fighting which culminated in a full scale retreat by the soldiers. some 53 insurgents and 31 soldiers are killed and over a hundred more soldiers are injured, many of them badly. After the retreat of the Army to positions northwards along the highway to Maiduguri, it emerged that the rebels captured the battalion’s armouries almost intact many of which were newly delivered including dozens of APCs, 57.5mm Anti-Aircraft guns, hundreds of GPMGs, over fifty RPG-7 with several hundred rockets, over a hundred anti-tank missiles and some launchers, dozens of towed 75mm and 105mm howitzers with several thousand shells etc.
Following the rout and retreat of the Army and the Police, the defence of the town fell to local civil defence militias aka Civilian Joint Task Forces (CJTFs). Sevral thousand CJTF fighters from Maiduguri and other nearby towns and cities poured into Damboa by 10th July, setting off Phase IV of the fighting.
Airforce jets drop some bombs on 10th and 11th July, but the Airforce High Command soon rules out further operations due to heavy Anti-Aircraft flak from insurgent positions.
Army launches operations to re-enter and retake the town on 11th and 13th July, but the operations are called off after advancing troops are ambushed along Damboa-Biu and Damboa-Maiduguri highways by fighters from Harakatul-Muhajiriin and Ansorul-Muslimiin. At least a dozen troops are killed.
On 16th July, reports surface from Damboa Town that Khalid Al-Barnawi and over three hundred ‘shock troops’ from Harakatul-Muhajiriin have arrived to take charge of rooting the several thousand CJTF fighters in the town. Al-Barnawi is the Amir/Leader of Harakatul-Muhajiriin Wal-Mujahidiin (Movement Of Those Who Have Migrated And Those Who Strive/Struggle) the most capable of all the insurgent forces battling the government collectively named Boko Haram.
On 17th July, combined Boko Haram forces launch offensive combat operations to clear the CJTF forces from their positions in the town. This operations are spearheaded by Harakatul-Muhajiriin’s elite commandos wth Khalid Al-Barnawi said to be the theatre commander.
Fighting rages throughout the whole day and night of 17th July, well into the next morning. Local media reports an unspecified number of people were killed and most of the town’s few remaining residents (many of the civilians had already run away when the campaign began) had fled into the bushes.
CJTF commanders acknowledge that most of the town is under insurgent control (18th July) with the Imam of the town and the local government chairman dying in the fighting, and possibly ‘hundreds’ of their men killed in the last phase of the battle. Most of the town is in ruins. Bodies are still being collected of CJTF personnel (19th July). Military sources confirm the defeat but decline to give casualty figures.
Importance Of This Battle
Attached to this SITREP is a map showing Borno State and its various local government areas (LGAs, counties/parishes for non-Nigerians). Damboa is southwards from Maiduguri and north of Chibok where over 200 girls were abducted two months ago. It runs across the state like a belt from the Cameroun-Nigeria border area (and Lake Chad with the Republic of Chad just across on the other side) to Yobe State where the Jamaa’atu Ahlis-Sunnah factions of Sheikh Bukar and Abubakar Shekau both maintain significant presence. Already with most of Biu, Chibok, Gwoza and Askira-Uba LGAs under insurgent control except for the towns, the fall of Damboa creates a contiguous territory for the rebels which I will henceforth refer to as WarZone South. WarZone South is ‘liberated’ territory running from the Adamawa Mountains (and insurgent safe havens and bases in Adamawa State and Northern Cameroun), to the southern part of Yobe State (Westwards from Borno).
This is the opposite of WarZone North which runs from the Chadian border at Bama, northwards through Ngala, Monguno, Kukawa and Abadam LGAs of Borno State (see map) across the inter-state boundary into Northern Yobe State.
The capture of Damboa represents a significant escalation and a strategic shift in the war. It is the first time the Boko Haram groups have jointly or individually launched a conventional operation, and also the first time they have come together and it was not to carry out a prison break. It is also the first time they have seized an urban centre and held on to it. This campaign marks a shift from their hit and run attacks to wear down government troops to a new phase of capturing and holding on to territory.
Simultaneously with the campaign to carve out territory in WarZone South, fighters have also been moving their bases in the inaccessible Mandara Mountains and Sambisa Forests and across the border in the Republic of Niger, to push out government forces from the strip of territory I have named WarZone North. I expect a major battle may soon be fought there.
The shift from guerilla operations to conventional warfare has been dramatic. Soldiers who have engaged the insurgents throughout the Damboa campaign and the battle for Damboa Town, have testified that they have employed complex tactics unlike before. They have for the first time taken to the field in regimental-size formations and have displayed remarkable command and control capabilities which the Army (amongst many other things) seems to lack.
The capture of Damboa Town and the clearing out of government forces from WarZone South has effectively cut off Maiduguri from Southern Borno, and with insurgent guerillas very active in Konduga LGA (see map), the capital of the state is gradually getting surrounded.
If Damboa is any indication of things to come, the Boko Haram/Yusufiyya groups are going to launch more combined operations, pushing out outwards from WarZones North and South, clearing rural ares of government troops and isolating them in towns before launching large-scale assaults to push them out of those towns until both WarZones meet in the Maiduguri-Jere axis (see map), thus leaving Maiduguri City surrounded by insurgent positions and rebel-held territory.
While the Army has tried to recapture Damboa, they have found themselves outmaneuvered by the rebels. Despite being overstretched on all fronts and lacking weaponry and equipment (this is due to massive entrenched corruption bleeding the $10billion defence budget dry), the Military’s greatest problem is that strategically speaking they are ten steps behind the insurgents. The rebels dictate the battle pace, and the course of the whole war. The strategic initiative is with them and the Military can only react to their moves. Already the Damboa Campaign has left the government confused on the response to give.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
