Nigeria

25, January 2017

Nigeria: Boko Haram using babies to thwart detection ⁰

Nigerian authorities have warned that female Takfiri bombers are using babies to thwart detection before their attacks. According to a new report, Nigerian officials stated that terrorist groups have been using women to carry out bombing attacks for some time but the use of babies in attacks signals a “dangerous” trend.

The report, published by the state-run BBC on Monday, called these bombings “suicide attacks,” but the fact that the innocent infants have no forethought or deliberation for killing themselves and others render the terminology null and void. On January 13, two women wearing concealed explosives managed to slip past a checkpoint in the town of Madagali and detonate their bombs, killing themselves and four other people. The assailants were able to slip past security because they were mistaken for civilians as they were carrying infants.

The main suspect for the blast is the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group, which is known for using women and young girls in their attacks. Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to Daesh, another Takfiri group, which has been wreaking havoc in the Middle East and North Africa over the past few years. In 2015, four women attempted to launch another attack on the town. Two were stopped at a checkpoint, but the two other, who were carrying babies, managed to pass the checkpoints and explode their explosives.

Nigeria has been at war with Boko Haram since the group started an insurgency in Borno about eight years ago. Almost 15,000 people have been killed while the violence has displaced more than two million. In recent months, army troops and civilian fighters in Nigeria have managed to foil many bomb attacks involving terrorists wearing explosive vests before the assailants were able to reach heavily-populated targets and detonate their bombs of their own accord. In response to the government’s actions, the terrorists have increased their bombing attacks.

On January 16, at least four people, including a university professor, were killed after a young girl, accompanied by a small child, detonated her explosive-laden vest at a university campus in Nigeria’s northeastern province of Borno. Meanwhile, the UN’s West African humanitarian coordinator, Toby Lanzer announced that Boko Haram’s actions in the region have put the lives of over half a million children in danger of severe malnutrition.

He stressed that if these children do not receive aid soon, they will die, adding that several communities have already lost all their infants. “If they don’t get the help they need on time, they die.” “What we have seen is extraordinary…I have seen adults sapped of all energy, who are almost unable to walk. We have had villages and towns devoid of 2- and 3- and 4-year-old children because they’ve died,” he added.

While noting that Nigeria and the Lake Chad region have been hit worst by the crisis, he stressed that there are about 11 million people there are “in desperate need” of aid while some 7.1 million more of them are “severely food-insecure.”

Presstv

18, January 2017

Nigeria: Army says mistaken airstrike kills 100 civilians ⁰

At least 100 civilians have been killed in what Nigeria’s army calls a mistaken airstrike in the north of the country. Nigerian military commander, Major General Lucky Irabor, confirmed on Tuesday that the attack in the northeastern area of Rann, near the border with Cameroon, had mistakenly targeted a refugee camp.

The general had earlier declined to give a toll of casualties. “Many civilians, including personnel of International Committee of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) were wounded,” he said of the Tuesday morning attack, which was carried out in Borno state.Local officials said the air force fighter jet that carried out the attack was on a mission to bombard suspected positions of Boko Haram, a Takfiri group operating in northern Nigeria and some neighboring countries.

Several other people, including aid workers, were injured in the airstrike. Later reports said those injured were all Nigerian nationals working for international aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC said in a later statement that six of its workers were killed in the airstrike. “We regret that among the casualties of today’s airstrikes in Rann, there are six Nigerian RC members killed and 13 wounded,” said the aid group. Hours later, the MSF issued a statement condemning the airstrike.

“This large-scale attack on vulnerable people who have already fled from extreme violence is shocking and unacceptable,” said MSF director of operations, Jean-Clement Cabrol. Nigeria has been at war with Boko Haram since the group started an insurgency in Borno about eight years ago. Almost 15,000 people have been killed while the violence has displaced more than two million, including those refugees killed in the mistaken airstrike.

Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to Daesh, another Takfiri group, which has been wreaking havoc in the Middle East and North Africa over the past few years. A task force established by the African Union to help Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram has almost contained the violence. However, Boko Haram has used the end of the rainy season to step up attacks over the past weeks as its militants could move easier in the bush. On Tuesday, the terror group claimed bombings that rocked the University of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno, a day earlier. A professor and a child were killed in the attack while 17 others were wounded.

Presstv

15, January 2017

Nigeria:Gunmen have abducted 5 students, 2 teachers and a Turkish national ⁰

Unknown gunmen have abducted five students and two teachers, including a Turkish national, from an international school in southwestern Nigeria, police say. The incident occurred on Friday evening when some unidentified gunmen gained entrance through the back fence of the Turkish Tulip International School, located in the Isheri area of Ogun State and took the students and teachers away at gunpoint on the school premises, said Ogun police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi on Saturday.

“We have deployed police operatives and are making serious efforts to release the victims unhurt and bring the culprits to book,” Oyeyemi further said, adding that the kidnappers had not made any contact with police or school authorities so far and no arrest has been made. Other reports maintained that the kidnappers came in a white Hilux pickup and fled through a swamp. No group or individual has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions, but It is unlikely for the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group, which is active in the northern and northeastern parts of Nigeria, to have been involved in the raid. Thus, local criminal gangs, which kidnap people for ransom, may be to blame.

On April 14, 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their secondary school in the northeastern town of Chibok in Borno. About 80 of the girls managed to escape afterward or were swapped for a number of Boko Harm prisoners, but the fate of the rest remains unknown. On September 8, police announced that they had managed to rescue two Chinese nationals, a week after they had been kidnapped by unknown gunmen, in the town of Odeda in Ogun. On October 6, unidentified gunmen also invaded Lagos Model College in the town of Igbonla in Epe area in the southwestern state of Lagos, abducting four students, a vice president and a teacher from the school.

Presstv

6, January 2017

Nigeria: Challenges of Conflict De-escalation in Recession ¹

Increased divergence in researches on insurgency in the 21st century has reflected in the plethora of definitions and descriptions for this common security conundrum. I defer to the British Military’s doctrine, (a credible authority, given decades of experience suppressing series of insurrection in Ireland) hence position that Insurgency is an organized movement designed to through armed resistance and subversive activities overthrow a constituted government in any state (UK Min. Of Defence 2004: 4). Contention with insurgency has become part of state security since the beginning of societal governance by groups supposedly striving for better governance on behalf of the general public. Tendencies for anti-state elements to challenge authority of ruling elites have been a major form of conflict in world history.

Biblical and other historical evidences chronicled the Roman Empire’s struggle against several insurgencies and coups. Jewish leaders led several putsches towards liberating Palestine from Roman rule in the period before and after Christ. In Africa, fight against colonialism between 1940 and 1965 set the pace for current ‘classical insurgencies’ designed to liberate Africa nations from an European imposed state system since independence. The central theme for African classical insurgency could be traced to the Marxist revolutionsts’ “propagating a better system of governance than currently obtainable”.

Insurgencies are premised and driven on the belief in the idea for change from status quo. Given that people are always curious and willing to sacrifice current status towards embracing a newer concept, the human fixation on “change”, even sometimes grievous and harmful has been the root of all anti-state conflicts. Experts agrees that the success of any rebellion is based on tactic popular supports. People drives and maintains insurgencies. Insurgents, like any animal, always adapt and adopt existing forest for cover and sustenance. Wining popular supports through covert and overt spread of “new idea” has been consistent in most rebellions, hence the term “peoples’ revolution”.

The MI6 maintained in its Journals that; “every program; paramilitary, policing, military, political, intelligence gathering, legal, psychological, civil and media, employed by the state towards eliminating insurgency is termed ‘counterinsurgency’”. If this is true, then the Nigerian state strategy needed to be reevaluated. There exists need for the established institutions to develop and provide properly articulated response giving clear roles to all arms of government and the media in fighting rebellions and insurgencies. Countering insurgencies should become a more robust operation which should take full cognizance of the socio-political environment and other distinctive factors enhancing radicalization in the area. Mere deployment of the military with high morale is never enough in guerrilla warfare. Over 15 years fruitless yet relentless engagement of the Taliban in Afghanistan by the mighty US Forces; the deplorable security situation in the failing Somalia despite years of combined military operation in Mogadishu; and, the Boko Haram unending engagement with Nigerian Military has revealed the inability of military might in counterterrorism operations.

Historical evidence according to the researches have revealed that military actions in countering insurgencies constitutes less than 10 percent of the efforts needed to eliminate an idea oriented movement. Records shows that policing and other political actions employed in the right proportion have been successful in ending insurgencies in conflicts like the IRA against the British government. Challenges of proper foundations for most African states creation has been blamed on the growth of anti-state elements agitating for self-determination and ethnic nationals’ independence. Nigeria conflict patterns since advent of independence has been tailored to reflect agitations of minority ethnic groups’ self-determination struggles. The Niger Delta and Biafran Struggle which has been a common index in Nigerian state conflicts since 1966 has festered through the Civil War of 1967 to 1970 through apparent lack of proper means of interaction between state and constituent units in Nigeria.

Honorable Steve Gamey, former Ghanaian Minister for Labour and a major teacher of conflict management maintains that the level of violence in Africa today is driven by lack of conflict management institutions in the continent. He postulate that states without conflict management plan, like Nigeria will only have plans for counterinsurgency. The Niger Delta conflict escalation since the eighties afforded the Nigerian state the opportunity to build and strengthen institutions to handle public agitations. Unfortunately, the state chosed an elite securitization model, the use of instrument of blunt force to protect the elite The Niger Delta conflict escalation since the eighties afforded the Nigerian state the opportunity to build and strengthen institutions to handle public agitations. Unfortunately, the state chosed an elite securitization model, the use of instrument of blunt force to protect the elite while alienating the people in the process.

The Nigeria Armed Forces were deployed to stem popular oppositions in Choba, Port Harcourt, arrest and killing of Ken-Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni Eight, the Odi Massascre and other attacks on dissenting forces termed “anti-state elements” laid the foundations for growth of classical conflicts in the Niger Delta by the end of the twentieth century. Classical insurgency was given a huge boast by the Nigerian government as the Nigeria law enforcement structure was practically taken over by a new military class robbing the state of the much needed resources for developmentof policing, judicial processes and criminal jurisprudence. The use of military expeditionary forces in mediating conflicts became common feature after the Lt. Gideon Orkar Coup of 22nd July 1990 and by 2005, the Nigerian Army has operations in over 26 states of the 36 state federations.

While the militarization of internal security operations grew and expanded, the Nigeria Police Force roles were further depleted by the mutation of internal security functions in Nigeria. The misguided state instead of concentrated efforts and resources at strengthening a policing force, plethora of bodies were created. Creating newer policing roles for other organizations without proper equipment and installed capabilities to perform such roles. Changing roles for the Nigerian military by the state further expanded the national security imbroglio. Unfortunately, Ill-equipped and untrained in civil conflict mediation, the Nigerian Army adaptation to its new roles were challenged in all theater of operations due to traditional hatred for security forces honed from the public mistrust of the colonialists establishment of the Hausa Regiment in Lagos in the late nineteen century by Col. Lugard to form the bulk head of fight against pro-independent movements in the regions.

Regrettably, these operations have succeeded in creating more opposition to the state than solving the militancy problem. From only 3 main militant groups in Bayelsa and Delta states in 1999, over 60 different camps were discovered at point of National Amnesty Programme introduction nine years later. Equally, crude oil illegal bunkering rose from a few hundred barrels per day in 1999 to a major economic drain of over 150,000bpd or a revenue loss of over $6 billion in 2015. The failure of military operations in Nigeria was hyped by the state’s introduction of a Niger Delta Amnesty Programme to mediate worsening security issues in the Delta and attacks on the state major revenue earner, oil

While the state bob and weave among several conflicts from Jos, Saki-Biam, Southwest and Southeast regions, challenges on all state institutions multiplied, straining already battered and ill-prepared public law enforcement institutions to limit. The apparent result was the failure of these institutions as challenges and demands on them grew in leaps and bounds while budgetary allocations remained fixed.

The growth of the Boko Haram insurgency since 2009, fall in international oil prices, an import dependent mono-product economy, a burgeoning youth population, double digits youth unemployment rate and a highly corrupt elites were a recipe for a falling state. Nigerian state institutions integrity unexpectedly fell and public trust plummeted in public domains at the turn of the century, radicalism equally grew as the youth demands a change from the old order. As the economic situation worsens, the seam that holds the nation together continued to fail, ethnic nationalities switches to group protection mode. Ethnic self-determination became the new challenge on state authority as ethnic militias like the Biafran and Niger Delta autonomy calls become national issues again since preindependence minority rights issues conference, threatening the now weakened.

Regrettably, as the state economy worsen in a balkanized, ethnocentric nation, groups’ rebellions could expand as each tries to regain and preserve its own identity and champion personal goals irrespective of national needs. As Nigeria prepares for worse economic scenario predicted for 2017, there are needs for proper prioritization of real need for security in Nigeria to face the growth in public agitations that are expected to follow the expected growth in hardship. The time to expand policing security capabilities through recruitment and training is now. The state must be ready to accommodate and manage public agitations instead of aggravating violent response. The army roles in civil engagement needed to be reanalyzed and realigned according to the 1999 constitution and deployment of forces properly checked. The state could ill afford costs resulting from several conflicts; hence there are needs for mustering all factors that might aggravate the already volatile situation.

Tolerance of the state institutions of security to be peacekeepers and not elite securitization organs with higher mandate than protecting the people could be discouraged. Security forces may be retrained to understand their roles in civil domains. Trigger happy security operatives have caused more national harms than good in recent past. A review of the current “Rules of Engagement” could be done by the legislature to reflect international standard and the deployment of security forces should be done with proper legislative supervision at all time.

All round policing and law enforcement system overhaul is required urgently in Nigeria, state internal security should and must be managed by policing institutions and not by the armed forces. The people always feels less threatened at police authority operations than when faced by the armed forces. Increasing internal security capacities can only be attained when the civil security operatives are allowed unfettered access to perform their duties. Domiciling local security operations in the army always weakens the national defense as it creates a military that is soft and not battle ready when called to action.

Policing private residences and hotels gates shouldn’t be the duties of an efficient military system. The deployment of military personnel in these points clearly shows the level of professionalism in Nigerian military and demeans the soldiers in the eyes of the public. All resources outlaid on military operations in conflict areas in Nigeria since the 1990’s cannot be counted as contributing to the development of internal security hence a colossal waste. These resources would have afforded the policing authorities the abilities to recruit, train and develop proper security operatives for the theater of operations as appropriate. Lack of proper policies on security of homeland and defense of territorial integrity of Nigeria has become cloudy. The line between internal security and Nigerian defense are now blurred regardless of national constitutional provisions.

Mediatisation of security operations has equally created a security class eager to discuss security issues in public domains without respect for confidentiality of investigation and personality of suspects. The hunger for public accolades has revealed barrage of information in public domain in Nigeria that not only increases perception of insecurity but aggravates the level of trust in the capacity of the security forces to provide adequate security. To ward against Nigeria devolution into a failed state, managing local conflict, establishing proper law enforcement system and a review of current Rules of engagement of security operations should be priorities of the state.

By Don Michael Adeniji

Contributing Editor

Cameroon Concord News Group

5, January 2017

Nigeria: 3 female bombers killed in a crowded market ⁰

Pro-government anti-terror fighters in Nigeria have managed to kill three radicalized girls before they could detonate their explosive vests in a crowded market in the country’s northeastern province of Adamawa, officials say.

The incident occurred on Wednesday when civilian fighters spotted the three girls and became suspicious that they were wearing explosive vests as the three were trying to pass a checkpoint in a village near the town of Madagali, said local council chairman Yusuf Muhammad Gulak. He said the girls ignored the fighters’ commands to stop and began running, prompting fire from the forces.

According to Gulak, the girl in the lead was shot first, and her explosives were activated as a result. The blast killed her and another one of the would-be terrorists. The third girl was also gunned down as she tried to escape the scene. Officials blamed the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group for the attempted attack.

In recent months, army troops and civilian fighters in Nigeria have managed to foil many bomb attacks involving terrorists wearing explosive vests before the assailants were able to reach heavily-populated targets and detonate their bombs of their own accord.

Last month, however, two women, with the Boko Haram, killed 57 people and injured 177, including 120 children, after they detonated their explosive vests at a bustling market at Madagali, some 20 kilometers from the Wednesday shootings scene. Boko Haram later claimed responsibility for the massacre. On December 24, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 with a pledge to eradicate Boko Haram, announced that the army had “crushed” the terror group a day earlier by retaking its last key bastion, deep inside the thick Sambisa Forest in the northeastern province of Borno.

Boko Haram terrorists started their reign of terror in 2009 with the aim of toppling the Nigerian government. In their heyday in early 2015, they managed to control an area in the country’s northeast as vast as Belgium, but they lost most of that territory over the last year as the Nigerian government, along with troops from some affected neighboring countries such as Chad and Cameroon, launched a joint military campaign to eradicate the militant group. The group, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has pledged allegiance to Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group mainly active in Iraq and Syria. Boko Haram terrorists have so far killed more than 20,000 people and forced over 2.7 million others from their homes.

Presstv

25, December 2016

Nigeria police building collapsed, kills 2 ⁰

A two-story building belonging to Nigeria’s police has collapsed, leaving two people dead. National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Sunday that the incident took place at about 04:00 a.m. (10.00 p.m. ET) in the densely populated Ikeja district in the commercial capital of Lagos.

A spokesman for Lagos state police said that the search for potential victims under the rubble was over. “Two people lost their lives. Nobody is inside the rubble,” said Dolapo Badmus. A NEMA official also confirmed that search for other people in the building, which was located in a police training center, was over.

There was no report on whether the cadets of the Nigerian police were also affected in the incident. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has seen frequent building collapses over the past years with officials keep blaming contractors for using cheap material in construction.

More than 150 people were killed in the collapse of a church southeast of Nigeria in December. In that case, prosecutors charged the engineers and church trustees with negligence, saying structural failures and detailing errors were to blame.

Presstv

7, December 2016

Nigeria: Poverty, prejudice drive more women to join Boko Haram ⁰

Failing to improve the lives of girls and women trapped in poverty and domestic drudgery in north-east Nigeria could drive them into the ranks of extremist groups, analysts said. Many girls and women have been abducted by the jihadist group Boko Haram and used as cooks, sex slaves and even suicide bombers, according to rights groups including Amnesty International.

Yet some women in the mainly Muslim north-east, frustrated by poverty, gender discrimination and deep-rooted patriarchy, have chosen to join Boko Haram voluntarily in the hope of a better life, an International Crisis Group (ICG) report said. “For some women trapped in domestic life, Boko Haram offers an escape,” Rinaldo Depagne, West Africa project director for the ICG, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Dakar, Senegal. “But this reflects a huge abyss of desperation among women … and a failure of society in the north-east,” he added.

Rates of child marriage, school enrolment and literacy among girls and women in positions of power are far worse in the north of Nigeria than the rest of the country, activists said. But women often take senior positions in Boko Haram. Female members are almost as likely as men to be deployed as fighters and may outnumber them in roles such as recruiters and intelligence operatives, researchers said in a study published in October.

Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and displaced some 2.6 million in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria during a seven-year campaign to carve out an Islamist caliphate. The army has driven Boko Haram out of much of the territory it held in 2014, but government and aid agencies must focus on caring for and reintegrating women affected by the insurgency as the country comes back under their control, the ICG said. Many women uprooted by the conflict and living in camps for the displaced have resorted to selling sex in exchange for food, while those who were married to or raped by the militants are often rejected by their communities.

For those women who chose to join Boko Haram, the power and freedom afforded to them means they are far more difficult than men to de-radicalise and reintegrate into their communities, according to Nigerian psychologist Fatima Akilu. “Exclusion and abuse of women may undermine military gains and mean they have same kind of grievances that pushed many to join Boko Haram in the first place,” Depagne said. “The state and civil society must improve the situation for women affected by Boko Haram, both victims and perpetrators, and ensure they play a role in rebuilding the north-east,” he added.

Defenceweb

18, November 2016

Boko Haram claims responsibility for three bomb attacks in Nigeria ⁰

Six people have been killed in three bomb attacks in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno. The bombings were carried out in Maiduguri, Borno’s capital, on Friday. One of the explosions rocked Jiddari area near a mobile police post, Borno state police commissioner Damian Chukwu told reporters in Maiduguri.

The official added that two other bombings were carried out “along Maiduguri-Gamboru road.” The Boko Haram Takfiri terrorists have claimed responsibility for the bombings. Police said four assailants and two civilian defense fighters were killed in the bombings. One of the attackers was arrested.

Emergency personnel stand near the wrecked remains of a vehicle ripped apart following two bombings in Nigeria’s northeast city of Maiduguri on October 29, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Maiduguri has been the epicenter of Boko Haram’s seven-year insurgency. Borno has taken the brunt of Boko Haram’s acts of terror, which started in 2009. The group has recently regained momentum after it was nearly obliterated months ago by a joint military force made up of Nigerian government forces and troops from neighboring countries.

Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq. The United Nations has warned that areas affected by Boko Haram face a humanitarian crisis. Boko Haram terrorists have so far killed more than 20,000 people and forced over 2.7 million others from their homes. The group started its campaign with the aim of toppling the central government in Nigeria.

Presstv

16, November 2016

UN says thousands of Nigerian children will be at risk of dying in “a few months” ⁰

The United Nations has warned that thousands of children will be at risk of dying in “a few months” across the militancy-riddled areas of northeastern Nigeria. Peter Lundberg, the UN humanitarian coordinator, said in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Tuesday that thousands of children could die from famine in the troubled region, adding that 400,000 children were in critical need of assistance, while 75,000 could die “in (the) few months ahead of us.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, the UN official said, “Currently our assessment is that 14 million people are identified as in need of humanitarian assistance.” Lundberg added that crisis was unfolding at “high speed” in Nigeria’s troubled northeast. The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned in July that some 49,000 children would die of malnutrition in northeastern Nigeria if they did not get treatment.

Most of the children are in areas that had been inaccessible before a multinational force liberated them from the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group earlier this year. Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym as the MSF, had earlier warned of a “catastrophic humanitarian emergency” in the city of Bama, where, it said, 200 people died in June.

Despite the government’s fight against Boko Haram, the security situation remains volatile in Borno and specifically Maiduguri, because Boko Haram terrorists still carry out attacks. Boko Haram started its campaign of militancy in 2009 with the aim of toppling the central government in Nigeria. It has so far taken the lives of more than 20,000 people and forced over 2.7 million others from their homes. The group has pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri terrorists operating mainly in Syria and Iraq.

Presstv

14, November 2016

Nigeria: Troops open fire at Shia Muslims holding a demonstration ⁰

Nigerian forces have opened fire at a group of Shia Muslims holding a demonstration in preparation for the upcoming Arba’een mourning rituals, which mark 40 days after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein, the third Shia Imam.

Soldiers blocked the road and fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse hundreds of people, including women and children, marching in the northern city of Kano on Sunday. The Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) said that one person was killed and several others were injured during the incident. According to the IMN, the peaceful demonstration is still underway despite the government’s attempts to stop it.

Followers of the IMN have been under a heavy-handed crackdown since last year when the army attacked a religious ceremony in their stronghold of Zaria in the north. Hundreds of people were killed and more, including the movement’s leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, were thrown behind bars.

Last week, the movement said it had received information that the Nigerian army was planning to attack Arba’een processions scheduled for November 20. Meanwhile, the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission has called on Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure the safety of mourners taking part in the processions.

This picture taken on November 26, 2015 shows members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) taking part in the symbolic procession commemorating Arba’een.

Last month, at least 20 people were killed and several others injured when Nigerian forces opened fire at Shia mourners commemorating Ashura, the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (Peace be upon him). In December 2015, Nigerian forces raided the house of the IMN’s leader Sheikh Zakzaky and arrested him after killing those attempting to protect him, including one of the movement’s senior leaders and its spokesman.

The Sheikh himself was shot seven times during the attacks and blinded in one eye and still remains in custody of the army. The raid occurred a day after Nigerian soldiers attacked Shia Muslims attending a ceremony at a religious center in the city of Zaria, accusing them of blocking the convoy of the army’s chief of staff and attempting to assassinate him. On August 1, the Islamic Human Rights Commission released a report, saying the Nigerian army killed 348 Shia Muslims during the attack on the religious ceremony.

Presstv