HORRORIZON:
Boko Haram jihadists have killed 53 soldiers and farmers in three days of attacks in northeastern Nigeria, security sources said Tuesday, in a new show of force ahead of February elections in the West African country.
Despite the government’s insistence that Boko Haram is near defeat, the group has recently carried out a string of major attacks on military and civilian targets.
President Muhammadu Buhari, seeking re-election in February, faces widespread criticism over his security record as soldiers based in the northeast regularly complain of fatigue and insufficient supplies of food and arms.
The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram splinter group, killed at least 44 soldiers in attacks on three military bases at the weekend, according to security sources.
Of those, at least 43 were killed on Sunday in Metele, a remote village near the border with Niger, according to a military officer who requested anonymity.
“Our troops were completely routed and the terrorists captured the base after heavy fighting,” he told AFP, adding that the base commander and three officers were among the dead.
A search was under way for survivors or further victims in the surrounding bush, he said.
A pro-government militiaman said the jihadists arrived on around 20 trucks and army air support did not arrive until after they had “invaded the base and looted the weapons”.
The same day, jihadists also launched a pre-dawn attack on a base in the town of Gajiram, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.
Fighting lasted several hours, local residents told AFP.
And a soldier was killed in an attack Saturday on a base in Mainok, also in Borno state, the cradle of the Boko Haram movement, security sources said.
– Villages also attacked –
ISWAP asserted responsibility for the attacks in Metele and Mainok, claiming to have killed at least 42 soldiers in addition to carting away four tanks and other vehicles, according to the SITE Intelligence monitoring group.
In addition, Monday saw the latest in a string of attacks on villages, usually carried out to pillage food and abduct civilians used as fighters or forced to marry jihadists.
The jihadists have accused farmers and loggers of passing information to the military.
Armed with guns and machetes, jihadists killed nine farmers and abducted 12 others in the Mammanti village in Borno state, locals told AFP on Tuesday.
The jihadists came on bicycles, said Usman Kaka, a farmer who escaped. “They just opened fire on us and continued to fire as we fled,” Kaka said.
Village chief Muhammad Mammanti said the assailants had hacked “three people who resisted being abducted”.
Also on Monday, seven women were snatched while working in fields near the city of Bama, according to militiamen fighting alongside army soldiers.
In an attack on Mammanti last week, jihadists stole hundreds of heads of cattle.
The surge in attacks on military targets suggests that hardliners within ISWAP have taken the upper hand after internal divisions, observers say.
More than 27,000 people have died since the start of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009, and 1.8 million remain homeless.
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/11/boko-haram-attacks-leave-53-soldiers-dead-in-pre-election-show-of-force/

bidex111:
#SF

jakeporeshenko:

Bidiexiii you no Dey sleep ?
Plus what happened to your other account

bidex111:


You mean when he doesn't live/stay in the barracks

bidex111:



We lost some good men but I think these news agencies are inflating the casualty figure.

BabaOwen:
so you feel all the news agencies like AFP, Punch etc are all inflating the numbers

CaptainStephen:
yes and this is not the first time.

bidex111:



We lost some good men but I think these news agencies are inflating the casualty figure.

Perfectdanny:


I mean when he's been transferrd like from his barack in enugu to the northeast to fight.

BabaOwen:
so you feel all the news agencies like AFP, Punch etc are all inflating the numbers

bidex111:


Yes
He or she is giving housing allowance; if his not living in the barracks or military housing schemes.

Geronimoe:
Even if it's one life lost it means something and it's a big shame that the military is always back and forth with this rag tag insurgents.

bidex111:



Dude you are funny, it's really sad that the army is taking a step forward and few steps backward.

But let me tell you the harsh reality; in these type of complex war we will lost good soldiers. Leave it or take it there is no shame in it, period.

Odunayaw:
Either ways its quite disappointing. Its like the Army doesn't learn, this base wars is getting nauseating already!

jakeporeshenko:
Nigerian navy helicopter flight training in partnership with IAC Ilorin

jakeporeshenko:
Clear picture of NAf king air in desert camo who’s responsible for this

Odunayaw:
The god of sexy things will be so disappointed!

Litmus:
Perhaps modern military tactics/doctrines over-complicates issues even when the arena may the bushes of forgotten third world places. I state this because I wonder why the lessons of historic wars since the birth of Jesus Christ dose not seem to figure in the minds of our military tacticians. The expensive castles of mediaeval Europe (13th /14th century) and the utilitarian forts of the old American West frontiers (18th century )were nothing but military bases. I doubt Bokoharam of the 21st century, armed as they are now, would overpower those ancient military bases with the ease and lack of losses with which they overrun those bases built by Nigerian army in this age of potential Mars colonisation. Would it be too much to ask or hope that Nigeria no longer builds military bases in the North East unless they are built to provide the usually small presence of soldiers a weeks worth of fighting chance given that backup takes so long to arrive.

jakeporeshenko:

Nigerian news media has a problem, any small outpost with more than 20 soldiers is referred to as an “army base”, in my opinion that is not correct, if you go and inspeact these (mostly temporary) structures built in a haste with literally wood and galvanized steel and some tents surrounding it, you won’t expect soldiers to defend such positions from heavy machine guns that even tear through armor, our soldiers are human beings too, the FG should give a mandate to the army to build proper bases/FOBs and man/equip them properly !

I also believe that the NE campaign suffers a serious lack of manpower.

Odunayaw:


This why I am very disgusted by the brass of NA! do they need to be told? There are a lot of things I wish to blurt on here but "thou shalt not spread dirty linen in public"

That said, How won't manpower be low when the Army is very happy to do police duties. I tire sef

jakeporeshenko:

The NE, precisely Borno states need to be divided into sectors, with each falling under the AOR of a properly built base or FoB.

These should be well built structures, easy to secure and defend, proper radios, manpower, perimeter awareness provided with watch towers and all of that, they should also have helipads at least for rapid deployment of reinforcements in case of an attack or evacuation of the wounded.
Fifhting day and night patrols can be dispatched form these bases.

Let’s spend the money and do things right, after more than a decade in Afghanistan how many NATO bases did the taliban overrun ?