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| Photo Credit: NigeriaTell |
I wonder when all these killings,bomblast and uncertainty in Nigeria will stop,Nigeria’s
air force today said it had lost another helicopter in the restive
northeast, after Boko Haram rebels raided two more towns and vigilantes and
hunters clawed back a key militant stronghold.
The second crash in a week happened late Thursday in Yola, the capital
of Adamawa, which is one of three states that has been under emergency rule
since May last year.
While there was no immediate indication that the armed Islamist movement was
responsible for the crash, there has been an increase in Boko Haram activity in
the state in recent weeks.
Boko Haram has reportedly taken over more than two dozen towns in Adamawa,
Borno and Yobe states, including the commercial hub of Mubi, some 200
kilometres (125 miles) from Yola
.
Last week, the extremists, who have been waging a five-year insurgency to
create a hardline Islamic state, renamed Mubi “Madinatul Islam” or “City of Islam” in Arabic,
residents said.
Nigeria’s
chief of army staff, Major General Kenneth Minimah, told a Senate defence
committee on Thursday that the loss of territory was “painful” but promised
that troops would recapture lost ground.
Locals and a government official said later that about 200 vigilantes and
hunters armed with home-made guns, spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and machetes
took back Mubi.
“It is true Mubi has fallen back into the hands of Nigerian soldiers with
the help of local vigilantes and hunters,” Chibado Bobi, chief of staff in the
Adamawa state governor’s office, told AFP.
“It is however too early for residents who fled to move back to Mubi because
the security and vigilantes need to mop up all remnants of the group that may
be lurking in nearby areas.”
Boko Haram had introduced its strict version of Islamic law in the town,
including amputations for accused thieves, according to residents who fled.
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