Scores of Boko Haram terrorists may have been killed
yesterday in Damboa town as soldiers of the 25 Task Battalion yesterday
staged a special operation that led to the recapture of the seized town.
The 25 Task Battalion was recently deployed to specially tackle the insurgents and recapture Damboa weeks after the insurgents had attacked the military base there, killed its commander and about a dozen other security personnel, as well as sacked the residents.
LEADERSHIP was reliably informed by a top security person in Maiduguri that the task force brigade “has today recaptured Damboa and sent some of the insurgents fleeing while some other members of the Boko Haram died in the hours of shootout”.
According to the source, the operation was facilitated by the Nigeria Air Force Alpha-Jet and the ground troop artillery.
It was also gathered that more troops are being deployed into the hinterlands of Damboa for clearing patrol.
Damboa was last month sacked and over 5,000 residents of the agrarian town were forced to flee to Gombe and Biu towns where they are presently being camped.
Boko Haram kills 100 in Gwoza
…New Emir’s whereabouts unknown
Barely a month after Boko Haram terrorists had taken over Damboa town of Borno State, Gwoza town, yesterday, came under the occupation of the insurgents, witnesses and security sources have said.
The attackers were said to have killed about 100 people and taken their onslaught into the main town of Gwoza for the first time and allegedly causing the disappearance of the new Emir of Gwoza, Alhaji Muhammed Idrissa Timta, who succeeded his father who was killed by Boko Haram on May 30, this year.
Gwoza town, which is about 158km from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, is the largest town after Maiduguri, Biu and Bama; Damboa is the fifth.
According to residents who used mobile phone lines of Cameroon to call from the mountain tops where they had all ran to take refuge, the gunmen that attacked them were dressed in soldiers’ uniforms and rode in vehicles painted with military colours.
“They came in their multitudes in the early hours of today (Wednesday), and they went to first attack the soldiers before attacking the town”, said a resident who begged not to be named as he feared being exposed.
The source who spoke in Hausa said he could speak through his phone because he was able to tap from the network of “Orange”, one of Cameroon’s national carriers. He told journalists: “I can communicate now because most of us are up in the mountains, many may have been killed; but from the top of the hills here we still could see the Boko Haram gunmen moving around in some armoured tanks with metal wheel towards the direction of the town near the palace of our Emir; I cannot say if the Emir is safe or not but everyone has left the town as we are speaking now. I have lost one of my friends with whom we were fleeing up the hills. He was shot with a bullet from behind. Everybody is scared because we can’t tell what will happen to us by night; the entire town is now taken over by the terrorists.”
Sources close to Gwoza Emirate told journalists in Maiduguri that the new Emir of Gwoza, Alhaji Muhammadu Idrissa Timta, may have been helped to escape before the attackers could reach his palace. But no official confirmation could be sourced on that up to the time of filing this report.
The young monarch, who is in his early 40s, succeeded his father, the immediate past Emir of Gwoza, Alhaji Idrissa Timta, after he was killed by Boko Haram gunmen on May 30 when he was travelling to Gombe to attend the burial of the late Emir of Gombe, alongside the emirs of Askira and Uba. The two emirs survived, but the king of Gwoza, who was the oldest, did not. His assailants shot him in the head.
Efforts to get across to the police public relations officer, Gideon Jubrin, was not successful too, but a source at the police headquarters who pleaded anonymity in this story told reporters that “we have received signals that Gwoza is under attack, but we could not give details now because the CP himself is out of town”.
1000 Nigerian refugees fleeing Boko Haram arrive deserted island in Chad – UN
The United Nations refugee agency has reported that nearly 1,000 people who recently arrived on the uninhabited Chadian island of Choua are Nigerian refugees fleeing attacks by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.
According to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the island of Choua, in Lake Chad, is about 4 kilometres from where the borders of Chad, Nigeria and Niger intersect.
The development monitored from the UN News Centre stated that refugees arriving on the island reported that they had fled violence and attacks on their village that resulted in the destruction of their houses and food reserves.
The group, which included mainly women and children, is in urgent need of food, water, shelter and medical care, the UNHCR reports.
Ariane Rummery, UNHCR spokesperson, stated in Geneva, Switzerland, that the refugees were from the Nigerian city of Kolikolia, in strife-torn Borno State.
She said that at the request of the government of Chad, the refugees would be relocated to the safer and more accessible hosting area in Ngouboua, some 30 kilometres from the border, where a number of Nigerian refugees and Chadian returned refugees already lived among hosting villages.
Meanwhile, UNHCR and its partners have sent aid packages – including high energy biscuits, water purification kits, mosquito nets, communal tents, sleeping mats and other household items – to Ngouboua.
(LEADERSHIP)
The 25 Task Battalion was recently deployed to specially tackle the insurgents and recapture Damboa weeks after the insurgents had attacked the military base there, killed its commander and about a dozen other security personnel, as well as sacked the residents.
LEADERSHIP was reliably informed by a top security person in Maiduguri that the task force brigade “has today recaptured Damboa and sent some of the insurgents fleeing while some other members of the Boko Haram died in the hours of shootout”.
According to the source, the operation was facilitated by the Nigeria Air Force Alpha-Jet and the ground troop artillery.
It was also gathered that more troops are being deployed into the hinterlands of Damboa for clearing patrol.
Damboa was last month sacked and over 5,000 residents of the agrarian town were forced to flee to Gombe and Biu towns where they are presently being camped.
Boko Haram kills 100 in Gwoza
…New Emir’s whereabouts unknown
Barely a month after Boko Haram terrorists had taken over Damboa town of Borno State, Gwoza town, yesterday, came under the occupation of the insurgents, witnesses and security sources have said.
The attackers were said to have killed about 100 people and taken their onslaught into the main town of Gwoza for the first time and allegedly causing the disappearance of the new Emir of Gwoza, Alhaji Muhammed Idrissa Timta, who succeeded his father who was killed by Boko Haram on May 30, this year.
Gwoza town, which is about 158km from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, is the largest town after Maiduguri, Biu and Bama; Damboa is the fifth.
According to residents who used mobile phone lines of Cameroon to call from the mountain tops where they had all ran to take refuge, the gunmen that attacked them were dressed in soldiers’ uniforms and rode in vehicles painted with military colours.
“They came in their multitudes in the early hours of today (Wednesday), and they went to first attack the soldiers before attacking the town”, said a resident who begged not to be named as he feared being exposed.
The source who spoke in Hausa said he could speak through his phone because he was able to tap from the network of “Orange”, one of Cameroon’s national carriers. He told journalists: “I can communicate now because most of us are up in the mountains, many may have been killed; but from the top of the hills here we still could see the Boko Haram gunmen moving around in some armoured tanks with metal wheel towards the direction of the town near the palace of our Emir; I cannot say if the Emir is safe or not but everyone has left the town as we are speaking now. I have lost one of my friends with whom we were fleeing up the hills. He was shot with a bullet from behind. Everybody is scared because we can’t tell what will happen to us by night; the entire town is now taken over by the terrorists.”
Sources close to Gwoza Emirate told journalists in Maiduguri that the new Emir of Gwoza, Alhaji Muhammadu Idrissa Timta, may have been helped to escape before the attackers could reach his palace. But no official confirmation could be sourced on that up to the time of filing this report.
The young monarch, who is in his early 40s, succeeded his father, the immediate past Emir of Gwoza, Alhaji Idrissa Timta, after he was killed by Boko Haram gunmen on May 30 when he was travelling to Gombe to attend the burial of the late Emir of Gombe, alongside the emirs of Askira and Uba. The two emirs survived, but the king of Gwoza, who was the oldest, did not. His assailants shot him in the head.
Efforts to get across to the police public relations officer, Gideon Jubrin, was not successful too, but a source at the police headquarters who pleaded anonymity in this story told reporters that “we have received signals that Gwoza is under attack, but we could not give details now because the CP himself is out of town”.
1000 Nigerian refugees fleeing Boko Haram arrive deserted island in Chad – UN
The United Nations refugee agency has reported that nearly 1,000 people who recently arrived on the uninhabited Chadian island of Choua are Nigerian refugees fleeing attacks by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.
According to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the island of Choua, in Lake Chad, is about 4 kilometres from where the borders of Chad, Nigeria and Niger intersect.
The development monitored from the UN News Centre stated that refugees arriving on the island reported that they had fled violence and attacks on their village that resulted in the destruction of their houses and food reserves.
The group, which included mainly women and children, is in urgent need of food, water, shelter and medical care, the UNHCR reports.
Ariane Rummery, UNHCR spokesperson, stated in Geneva, Switzerland, that the refugees were from the Nigerian city of Kolikolia, in strife-torn Borno State.
She said that at the request of the government of Chad, the refugees would be relocated to the safer and more accessible hosting area in Ngouboua, some 30 kilometres from the border, where a number of Nigerian refugees and Chadian returned refugees already lived among hosting villages.
Meanwhile, UNHCR and its partners have sent aid packages – including high energy biscuits, water purification kits, mosquito nets, communal tents, sleeping mats and other household items – to Ngouboua.
(LEADERSHIP)
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