11.8 Netherlands, New Zeland, Norway, Philippine, Poland, Qatar

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. Netherlands
- On December 18, 2002, a court in Rotterdam, Netherlands, found four men non-guilty of involvement in a plot to blow the US Embassy in Paris. They had been arrested two days after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. The court found that there was insufficient evidence to condemn them. The evidence was obtained ignoring the legal procedures in order to get the Dutch intelligence services in a good light.
- On December 29, 2003, the Dutch police intercepted a letter bomb sent to the director of the international police agency, Europol, and an explosive parcel sent to the head of the European Central Bank. This came a few days after a parcel burst into flame in the hands of Romano Prodi, the Head of the European Commission in Bologna, Italy. Prodi was not hurt.
- On January 16, 2004, we were told by the International Atomic Energy Agency that a shipment of scrap metal that arrived in the Netherlands on December 16, 2003, contained also "yellow cake", a uranium compound, from Iraq.
- After a Dutch soldier was killed and five were seriously wounded in Iraq, the government said on August 15, 2004, that it had no intention of withdrawing its troops. This was the second death of a Dutch soldier in Iraq -the first was killed in May, the first Dutch soldier to die in conflict since 1995.
- The Dutch military mission to Iraq came to an end on March 7, 2005, with the formal transfer to the British of the Dutch base in southern Iraq. The troops are not yet home from Iraq, but the Dutch ministry of defence is already planning the next mission -this time to Afghanistan- leaving parliament with a sense that it has been completely sidelined regarding this particular plan.
- On March 18, 2005, prosecutors in the Netherlands have formally charged a Dutch businessman with complicity in genocide for selling chemicals to Iraq's former regime. Frans van Anraat, 62, is accused of selling Iraq chemicals of American and Japanese origin. These chemicals could have produced poison gas, the same as those used to kill more than 5,000 in a 1988 attack on the Kurdish Iraqi town of Halabja. Mr van Anraat earlier admitted selling chemicals to the Iraqis, but told Dutch TV he had not known what they would be used for. Evidence being used by prosecutors includes information obtained from the former head of Iraq's chemical weapons programme, Ali Hassan al-Majid, otherwise known as Chemical Ali.
- On December 23, 2005, a Dutch chemical dealer, Frans van Anraat, was condemned to 15 years in jail in The Hague, Netherlands, for supplying Iraq with the material that was used to kill thousands of Iraqis with lethal gas in a Kurdish village in the 1980s.

- On November 18, 2006, Dutch Muslims criticised a government proposal to ban women from wearing the burqa or veils, which cover the face in public places. Dutch Muslim groups say a ban would make the country's one million Muslims feel victimised and alienated. The Dutch cabinet said "burqas" - a full body covering that also obscures the face - disturb public order and safety. The decision comes days ahead of elections, which the ruling centre-right coalition is expected to win. The proposed ban would apply to wearing the burqa in the street, and in trains, schools, buses and law courts in the Netherlands. Other forms of face coverings, such as veils, and crash helmets with visors that obscure the face, would also be covered by a ban.

- The Dutch government raised the national threat level Thursday March 6, 2008, because of what it said was greater activity in Europe by professional terrorists from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Netherlands also had become a more likely target after a legislator announced plans to release a film harshly critical of the Qur'an. The alert rose to "substantial," the second-highest of four possible levels.

- The Dutch government supported an invasion of Iraq that had no legal backing and did not fully inform parliament about its plans in the run-up to the conflict, a long-awaited investigation concluded on Tuesday January 12, 2010. According to the report the United Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq from the 1990s did not give a mandate to the US-British military intervention in 2003. The Netherlands gave political support to the war because of a risk that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. It emerged later that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The U.S.-led invasion probably also targeted "regime change" in Iraq but military intervention for this reason was not supported by international law and the Dutch government was aware of this. The report said the Dutch government did not adequately inform parliament in 2002 and 2003 about a U.S. request that it support planning for the invasion, and about the timing of Dutch logistical support for the invasion.

- The Dutch coalition government collapsed on Saturday February 20, 2010 amid a political row over whether to extend the country's military mission in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was due to submit his government's resignation to Queen Beatrix later, leaving the future of its 1,600 soldiers stationed there uncertain. The left-leaning Labor Party leaves the government because it wants the Netherlands to adhere to a scheduled military withdrawal of the bulk of its 1,600 troops from the Afghan province of Uruzgan by the end of August, 2010 despite a request from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to stay longer.

- On Tuesday April 7, 2015, the Dutch Justice Ministry has reported that up to 190 of its citizens have travelled to fight in overseas “jihadi conflicts.” 35 have returned and approximately 30 have been killed.

Netherlands Tuesday January 8, 2019:

. New Zeeland
On September 25, 2004, New Zealand's Army engineers came home after six months in Iraq. The Government has no plans to send another detachment. Prime Minister Helen Clark welcomed the 61 engineers and support staff, said that it was unlikely they would be replaced.

- On November 16, 2007, we were told that a New Zealand soldier, who shot himself and a colleague when his rifle accidentally discharged in Afghanistan in October, will face charges over the incident. The soldier was shot in the leg, while a second soldier was hit in the arm and side when the gun went off inside the Humvee vehicle they were travelling in. Both soldiers are in New Zealand, one back doing light duties and the other still recovering.

- New Zealand is set to withdraw its soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of April 2013, we were told on Monday September 3, 2012. The New Zealand unit now in Afghanistan is a provincial reconstruction team based in Bamiyan and flights using Hercules transport planes have been central to its operation. A small number of New Zealand defence force trainers are expected to head to Afghanistan in late 2013 to help with the Afghanistan National Army Officer Training Academy.

. Nigeria

- Hundreds of bodies remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International described as the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram. Fighting continued on Friday January 9, 2015, around Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on 3 January and attacked again on Wednesday. Most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents. Amnesty International said there are reports the town was razed and as many as 2,000 people killed.

- Nigeria Saturday January 10, 2015:

- Two suspected child suicide bombers blew themselves up in a market in northeast Nigeria on Sunday January 11, 2015, killing three people while 46 were injured in the second apparent attack in two days using young girls strapped with explosives. The blasts struck at an open market selling mobile handsets in the town of Potiskum in Yobe state. The bombers were about 10 years old.

- The Nigerian army has repelled an attack by suspected Boko Haram militants in the town of Biu in the north-eastern state of Borno. Some insurgents were killed and the others were driven back. The attack came after three people were killed in a suicide attack in neighbouring Gombe state on Tuesday. ---

A suicide bomber killed at least six people and wounded 11 on Friday January 16, 2015, near a marketplace in north-eastern Nigeria. It was a suicide bombing. Among the six people killed was the bomber; 11 others were injured. The blast went off in the packed market neighbourhood of Kasuwar Arawa, close to the public university in Gombe, which is capital of Gombe state. The bomber went into the crowd of people waiting to recharge their telephones at a public charging station and then set off the explosive.

A suicide bomber in north-eastern Nigeria has killed four people and injured other commuters at a bus station. He drove a car into the station on the outskirts of Potiskum in Yobe state, called over a girl selling water and then triggered the explosion. Last Sunday, two female suicide bombers targeted a market in the town. That attack, in which four people died and more than 40 were injured, was blamed on Boko Haram.

Boko Haram attacked a village in northern Cameroon early Sunday January 18, 2015, killing three people and staging its largest kidnapping yet in the country. Some of the hostages were children. In a separate attack in Nigeria, a suicide bomber killed four people and injured 35 others in the northeast town of Potiskum. The Cameroon attack occurred in Mabass village, in the Far North region. 80 houses were destroyed and "between 30 and 50" people were believed to have been abducted.

Four people were killed and 35 wounded after a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives at a bus station in Potiskum, a town in northeast Nigeria, on Sunday January 18, 2015.

Mistrust between Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon as well as disagreements over how to deploy troops against Boko Haram have stalled efforts to set up a regional force to combat the Islamist militants. Failure to launch the 2,800-strong mission as planned in November has left the insurgents in control of large swathes of Nigeria's north east from where they launch attacks. The group, which aims to carve out an Islamist emirate in northern Nigeria, carried out a scorched-earth raid this month on Baga, a town on the shores of the Lake Chad that was due to serve as the headquarters for the regional force. The fall of Baga and reports of the slaughter of up to 2,000 inhabitants underscore the risks of Nigeria and Cameroon failing to work together.

On Friday January 23, 2015, we were told that the campaign of terror by Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency Boko Haram was responsible for nearly half of all civilian deaths in African war zones last year. Fighting associated with Boko Haram killed 6,347 civilians in 2014. The number of civilians killed in areas such as Nigeria, Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan rose by 30% last year to 13,508 deaths. Boko Haram, which means “western education is forbidden”, is trying to form its own state in northern Nigeria under a strict interpretation of Islamic law. This month, the group carried out its deadliest attack to date, killing up to 2,000 people in one day. Nigeria, CAR and South Sudan had the highest number of civilian casualties last year, Acled’s data showed.

Nigeria's military repelled multiple attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants on Borno state capital Maiduguri in the northeast we were told on Sunday January 25, 2015, but the insurgents captured another Borno town. At least eight people had died and 27, mostly civilians, had been injured. A second attempt to take the city's airport in the afternoon was also repelled. A raid on Monguno, 140 km north, began later in the morning and the town fell under militant control by the late afternoon.  The militants also simultaneously attacked another town, Konduga, which is 40 km from Maiduguri, but the military said it had thwarted the raid.

Nigerian troops were fighting on Monday January 26, 2015, with air support to recapture the northeastern town of Monguno from Boko Haram insurgents as more than 5,000 residents fled. The insurgents on Sunday seized the town in a triple offensive that also targeted Konduga and the outskirts and airport of the main northeastern city of Maiduguri. More than 100 people, mainly insurgents but also including at least 15 soldiers and a few civilians, had been killed in Sunday's fighting around the city. In Monguno, at least 15 soldiers were killed along with more than 25 civilians. Warplanes had attacked rebel positions after ground troops were forced to retreat. Soldiers said they had come up against superior firepower. On Monday the bombardment had resumed. Monguno lies near the larger town of Baga, which was seized by Boko Haram this month along with a military base in an attack that left scores of civilians dead. The insurgents said that they had seized enough weapons to "annihilate Nigeria". --

Chad sent a warplane dropping bombs and ground troops to drive Islamic extremists from a Nigerian border town, leaving it strewn with the bodies of the Islamic extremists we were told on Friday January 30, 2015. This was the first such action by foreign troops on Nigerian soil to fight the militants of Boko Haram. Also the African Union moved to send ground forces and the U.S. said it would assist. Also Thursday, Boko Haram fighters made a second attack in a week on Maiduguri, the biggest city in Nigeria's northeast. Soldiers fled when the insurgents began launching rockets just outside the city of 2 million but the militants were fought off by the civilian self-defense group armed with homemade hunting rifles.

Suspected Boko Haram fighters have launched an offensive against the key Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the largest city in Borno State. Armed men on Sunday February 1, 2015, hit Maiduguri's south in a bid to gain entry to the strategically-important city. People were fleeing the south, but also moving into Maiduguri from the surrounding areas, fearing fresh attacks from other directions. The military is deploying large numbers of troops to the north of the city as this could be a ploy or diversion by Boko Haram.

Nigeria's military on Sunday February 1, 2015, repelled a Boko Haram assault on the key city of Maiduguri as violence raged across the country. This was the Islamists' second attempt to take Maiduguri in a week. The air force of neighbouring Chad was pounding the militants' positions in Gamboru, a town on Nigeria's border with Cameroon 140 kilometres to the northeast.

On Sunday February 1, 2015, a female suicide bomber has blown up herself in northern Nigeria's Gombe city, minutes after President Goodluck Jonathan left a campaign rally there. At least one person was killed and 18 others were wounded in the blast.

On Tuesday February 3, 2015, we were told that Chadian troops have entered Nigeria to join the battle against militant Islamist group Boko Haram. Armoured vehicles and infantry crossed a bridge from Cameroon following air strikes and mortar attacks on Boko Haram positions. Fighting focused on the key north-eastern town of Gamboru. Chad's deepening involvement shows how the conflict with Boko Haram is taking a regional dimension. Last week, Chadian troops moved into Malumfatori, a Nigerian town which lies near the borders of Chad and Niger, after a ground and air assault against the militants. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has threatened to create a caliphate, incorporating parts of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The African Union has responded by backing plans to establish a 7,500-strong regional force to fight the group. The Chadian contingent of about 2,000 troops crossed the frontier without a shot being fired. Chad warplanes had earlier carried out air strikes.

Nigeria on Monday February 2, 2015, said it had retaken Gamboru and four other towns held by Boko Haram following a joint weekend offensive by its military, civilian vigilantes and forces from Chad and Cameroon. Our troops are in control after operations which had the active support of volunteers (vigilantes) and our friendly neighbours. The following towns in northeast Borno state were retaken over the weekend: Mafa, Mallam Fatori, Abadam, Marte and Gamboru, where Chad has carried out three days of airstrikes.

On Wednesday February 4, 2015, Chad's army says it has killed more than 200 militant Islamists and lost nine men during a battle to recapture a key town in north-eastern Nigeria. Boko Haram militants killed about 30 people after fleeing from the battle to Cameroon. Chad and Nigeria are also bombing the vast Sambisa forest, where the militants have bases. Boko Haram fighters were suspected to have taken to the forest more than 200 schoolgirls it abducted in April from the north-eastern Nigerian town of Chibok. It is not clear whether any of the girls are still there. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has since said that the girls have been married off.

Boko Haram fighters have shot or burned to death about 90 civilians and wounded 500 in ongoing fighting in a border town near Nigeria. Some 800 Islamic extremists attacking the town of Fotokol “burned churches, mosques and villages and slaughtered youth who resisted joining them to fight Cameroonian forces we were told on Thursday February 5, 2015. The Nigerian insurgents also looted livestock and food in the fighting that began on Wednesday. Boko Haram has been using civilians as shields, making it difficult to confront them, although reinforcements have arrived in Fotokol. Hundreds of insurgents were killed on Wednesday along with 13 Chadian and six Cameroonian troops. At least 91 civilians have been killed and most of the more than 500 who have been wounded cannot be taken quickly to hospital. The fighters are believed to have crossed into Cameroon from nearby Gambaru, a Nigerian border town. The fighters were driven out by Chadian and Nigerian air strikes supported by Chadian ground troops.

African Union officials were finalising plans on Thursday February 5, 2015, for a multinational force to fight the spreading Boko Haram uprising, though there are questions about funding. Last week the AU authorised a 7,500-strong force from Nigeria and its four neighbours, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin.

France has sent military advisers to Niger's southern border with Nigeria to help coordinate military action by regional powers fighting the Islamist group Boko Haramwe were told on Thursday February 5, 2015. The deployment was announced as warplanes pounded Boko Haram positions just over the border in Nigeria and hundreds of Chadian troops massed at the frontier to prepare an attack. Chad has sent about 2,500 troops as part of efforts to take on the militant group, which has intensified its fight to set up a breakaway Islamist state in Nigeria and has staged cross-border raids. Chadian troops crossed into Nigeria this week from Cameroon, on the southern side of Lake Chad. A detachment of about 10 French military personnel had been stationed in Diffa at the request of Niger, its former colony. It is there to coordinate the armies on the ground in the fight against Boko Haram. The African Union (AU) has authorized a force of 7,500 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin to fight the militants. It is expected to seek a United Nations Security Council mandate, which could also include logistical support from other countries. The parliament in Niamey would vote Monday to send its troops to Nigeria. ---

Nigeria’s electoral commission will postpone next Saturday’s presidential and legislative elections for six weeks to give a new multinational force time to secure north-eastern areas under the sway of Boko Haram we were told on Saturday February 7, 2015. Millions could be disenfranchised if the voting went ahead while the Islamic extremists hold a large swath of the north-east and commit mayhem that has driven 1.5 million people from their homes.

On Sunday February 8, 2015, militants from Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram have hijacked a bus in northern Cameroon, abducting at least 20 people. Militants seized a bus carrying market-goers and drove it toward the border with Nigeria. Boko Haram has escalated its attacks outside Nigeria in recent weeks, targeting neighbouring Cameroon and Niger. The insurgency has forced a postponement of Nigeria's presidential and parliamentary elections from 14 February to 28 March. The bus was seized near the border area of Koza and driven towards the Nigerian border 18km away.

Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamic extremists have abducted about 30 people including eight Cameroonian girls and killed seven hostages in two bus hijackings in Cameroon and Nigeria we were told on Tuesday February 10, 2015. Boko Haram, who kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria last year in an incident that ignited international outrage, have taken eight Cameroonian girls hostage. The girls range in age from 11 to 14 and come from the town of Koza. The bus attack took place Sunday about 11 miles from Cameroon's border with Nigeria. Seven other hostages were slain and their bodies scattered near the border. Also Sunday, across the border in Nigeria, the Islamic extremists held up a bus in Akada-Banga village of Bama district and made off with about 20 people, including women and children.

Boko Haram on Wednesday February 11, 2015, launched a pre-dawn raid in Gamboru, northeastern Nigeria, looking to overwhelm Chadian troops who had pushed them out of the border town. The militants were repelled but the counter-attack was an indication of the task facing regional forces aiming to crush the rebellion. In Niger a suicide bomber was killed, without causing any other casualties, in the Diffa region bordering Nigeria. The bomber, a man or woman wearing a hijab, was spotted by police who opened fire. The explosion left no victims.

A suspected suicide bomber blew herself up in a market in the town of Biu in Nigeria's northeast Borno state on Thursday February 12, 2015, killing at least six people. A further 17 people were wounded.

A suspected suicide bomber blew herself up in a market in the town of Biu in Nigeria's northeast Borno state on Thursday February 12, 2015, killing at least six people. A further 17 people were wounded. The bomber had strolled into Biu Central Market wearing a hijab and nobody was suspicious of her intention until a loud sound was heard.

Nigerian troops have repelled a Boko Haram attack on the north-east city of Gombe. Soldiers and a fighter jet were used in a counter-attack after Islamist fighters overran a checkpoint on the edge of the city. The insurgents were retreating towards their stronghold in the neighbouring state of Borno. All roads in and out of Gombe have been blocked and a 24-hour curfew imposed. Militants first attacked the town of Dadin Kowa, about 40km from Gombe. Ground troops with air support then battled to keep the insurgents from entering the city, as residents fled into the bush and nearby hills.

On Saturday February 14, 2015, hundreds of Boko Haram Islamists have invaded the north-east Nigerian city of Gombe, firing heavy guns and distributing leaflets calling on residents to boycott upcoming general elections. The extremists stormed the city and advanced without any resistance from the security forces. A Nigerian fighter jet encircled the city but made no attempt to attack the insurgents. The residents had been warned to evacuate Gombe, which has been attacked by the insurgents previously.

A female suicide bomber blew herself up at a crowded bus station in the northeast Nigerian city of Damaturu on Sunday February 15, 2015, killing 10 people and wounding 30. On Saturday, heavily armed Boko Haram militants attacked and attempted to overrun the northeastern Nigerian city of Gombe but were repelled. ---

On Monday February 16, 2015, Nigerian troops, backed by air strikes, have reclaimed the town of Monguno from Boko Haram, a military statement said. The group seized the town last month, forcing more than 5,000 people, including some soldiers, to flee. Monguno, in north-eastern Borno state, is near the capital Maiduguri and the borders of Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Boko Haram has seized control of much of the north-eastern Borno state in recent months, amid widespread criticism of the Nigerian army. But backed by its neighbours, especially Chad, some territory has been recaptured in recent weeks. Meanwhile, an official from US Africa Command told the BBC that they will provide Nigeria with training and equipment to combat Boko Haram.

Nigeria Tuesday February 15, 2015:

Nigeria's presidential election on March 28 will not take place peacefully, AbuBakr Shekau, leader of Boko Haram, has said in a new video purportedly released by the group on Tuesday February 17, 2015. In the video Shekau issued a warning to the Goodluck Jonathan's government that next month's elections would be disrupted with violence. "Allah will not leave you to proceed with these elections even after us, because you are saying that authority is from people to people, which means that people should rule each other, but Allah says that the authority is only to him, only his rule is the one which applies on this land". "And finally we say that these elections that you are planning to do, will not happen in peace, even if that costs us our lives.

Two suicide attacks in northeast Nigeria killed at least 38 people Tuesday February 17, 2015, after Boko Haram razed a town and as violence raged across the embattled region less than six weeks from elections. A regional military offensive could contain the bloodshed before the new polling day, March 28. But the latest wave of attacks blamed on the rebels underscored the challenge facing Nigeria and its neighbours -Cameroon, Chad and Niger- despite claims of major successes in the joint operation launched this month. Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou vowed that his country's involvement in the four-nation coalition would herald the end for the rebels, whose six-year insurgency has killed more than 13,000 people.

Boko Haram militants fleeing a Nigerian army offensive killed 21 people on Friday February 19, 2015, in attacks near the northern village of Chibok. The rebels were fleeing a land and air offensive to clear them out of the Sambisa forest when they raided the villages of Gatamarwa, Makalama and Layhawul and opened fire on terrified residents. Boko Haram fighters in many parts of Nigeria and the region are on the run, after being subjected to a major military offensive on all sides by Nigeria and its neighbours Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Nigerian warplanes bombarded insurgent training camps and caches of their weapons and vehicles in Sambisa on Thursday. But when Boko Haram, which is fighting to carve an Islamic state out of Africa's biggest economy, feels threatened, the civilian population often becomes a target. The security source said the insurgents fleeing the Sambisa operation had taken revenge on the civilian population.

On Saturday February 21, 2015, the Nigerian army has retaken the north-eastern town of Baga, held by Boko Haram militants since 3 January. Mopping up operations were continuing. Nigeria says 150 people died when Boko Haram took Baga and nearby Doron Baga, but locals said up to 2,000 died.

A girl thought to be as young as seven killed herself and five others in a suicide bombing in north-east Nigeria on Sunday February 22, 2015, as the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, conceded that his government had underrated the capacity of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. The attack on a market in the town of Potiskum is the latest in a string of suicide strikes in which children have been used. Previous attacks have been blamed on Boko Haram. Five people were killed with the girl while 19 others have been taken to hospital for injuries. ---

On Sunday February 22, 2015 a girl as young as 10 blew herself up in a busy market in northeastern Nigeria, killing herself and four others, and fuelling fears Islamic extremists are using kidnapped girls as suicide bombers. It also seriously wounded 46 people. The girl got out of a tricycle taxi in front of the busy cellphone market in Potiskum then detonated her explosives.

An American woman working as a Christian missionary in Nigeria has been kidnapped. Rev Phyllis Sortor, a missionary with the Free Methodist Church, was taken away by masked gunmen in the central Nigerian town of Emiworo, Kogi state on Tuesday February 24, 2015.

Suicide bombers have struck two bus stations in different parts of northern Nigeria, killing at least 22 people and wounding scores. In the first explosion, a suicide bomber rushed onto a bus in the town of Potiskum before setting off a blast that killed at least 12 people and injured 35 others. In the second attack, two suicide bombers launched a coordinated strike on a major bus station in the city of Kano, killing at least 10 people.

Nigeria Thursday February 26, 2015:

A crowd beat to death a teenage girl accused of planning to be a suicide bomber and then set her body ablaze Sunday March 1, 2015, at a northeastern Nigerian market. A second suspect, also a teenage girl, was arrested at Muda Lawal, the biggest market in Bauchi city. In Bauchi, the two girls aroused suspicion by refusing to be searched when they arrived at the gate to the vegetable market. People overpowered one girl and discovered she had two bottles strapped to her body. They clubbed her to death, put a tire doused in fuel over her head and set it on fire. It seems doubtful the girl was actually a bomber as she did not detonate any explosives when she was attacked. She was the victim of "mob action carried out by an irate crowd.

A woman suicide bomber has killed two passers-by and her accomplice in an attack in northeast Nigeria. Moments before the explosion, the female attacker and her accomplice, had tried to board a bus but were stopped by the driver. The suicide mission took place when two women wearing hijabs tried to board a commercial vehicle but the wary driver resisted we were told on Saturday February 28, 2015. One of the women was wearing the bomb around her waist and it exploded after the bus departed, killing the other woman and two other people. The two women tried to board the bus in the village of Ngamdu, the capital of Borno state. The two women were wearing the hijab and they told the driver they wanted to go to Damaturu. After the explosion, residents of the village shut themselves up in their homes leaving the four dead bodies on the road. ---

Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram released a video on Wednesday March 4, 2015, showing the beheading of two men. The film, released on Monday, shows militants standing behind the two men who are on their knees, hands tied behind their backs, with one man standing over them, holding a knife. One of the kneeling men is made to tell the camera that they were paid by authorities to spy on the militant group, before the film moves to another scene showing their decapitated bodies. It was not possible to confirm the film's authenticity or date.

At least 45 people were killed on Tuesday March 3, 2015, by suspected Boko Haram militants in a remote village in the north-eastern Borno state of Nigeria. The insurgents started shooting into houses in Njaba. The village is close to the town of Damboa.

More than 50 people were killed and scores wounded in a series of suicide bombings in northern Nigeria on Saturday March 7, 2015. The blasts occurred in Maiduguri, the capital of the tumultuous Borno state, at the city's main market, a fish market and a bus station. Four suicide bombers -three women and a man- carried out the attacks.

An American missionary who was kidnapped in central Nigeria in February was safely released to authorities and church leaders on Friday March 6, 2015. Sortor was abducted from a church academy compound in Emiworo, in Nigeria's Kogi State, on February 23.

Nigeria Sunday March 8, 2015:

Nigeria Monday March 9, 2015:

Forces from Chad and Niger opened a new front in the regional military fight against the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, as army vehicles full of soldiers crossed the border into northeast Nigeria we were told on Monday March 9, 2015.

The Nigerian city of Maiduguri came under attack again just days after Boko Haram bombings killed 58 people. Twin blasts ripped through the northeastern city's crowded Monday Market, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombers, including on Saturday, as well as a nearby street. At least 34 persons were killed by a teenage girl suicide bomber on Tuesday March 10, 2015, at a crowded market. ---

Nigeria said on Wednesday March 11, 2015, that 36 towns had been retaken from Boko Haram since the start of a four-nation military offensive. Four towns had fallen since last Friday, including three in Borno state and Buni Yadi, in neighbouring Yobe. But witnesses, experts and claims by other militaries indicate that Chadian troops have made a particularly large contribution, advancing deep into Nigerian territory and flushing Boko Haram fighters out of several parts of Borno state.

Nigerian troops discovered a Boko Haram bomb factory this week after they seized a northern town from the extremists. The factory was tucked inside a fertilizer company in Buni Yadi town in Yobe state. Soldiers have been scouring the factory and have found suicide bomber vests and improvised explosive devices, we were told on Friday March 13, 2015.

The Nigerian government has acknowledged it is getting technical and logistical support from what it calls foreign contractors in the fight against Boko Haram.

On Thursday March 12, 2015, we were told that the government is not engaging in "any backchannel or unlawful recruitment" but soldiers from neighbouring countries, including Chad and Niger, were participating in operations against the group. Other "individuals" from the region "are on the ground in a capacity limited to training or technical support". However mercenaries from South Africa and other countries are actually playing a decisive fighting role on the frontlines.

At least 45 villagers, including women and children, were killed in a dawn raid on Egba village in Benue state Sunday March 15, 2015, by suspected herdsmen in Nigeria's central Benue state. Several others were injured in the gun and machete attack.

The Nigerian army said on Tuesday March 17, 2015, it had repelled Boko Haram from all but three local government districts in the northeast, claiming victory for its offensive against the Islamist insurgents less than two weeks before a presidential election. At the start of this year, Boko Haram controlled around 20 local government areas, a territory the size of Belgium, in its bloody six-year-old campaign to carve out an Islamic state in religiously mixed Nigeria. But a concerted push by Nigeria's military and neighbours Chad, Cameroon and Niger has regained considerable ground. At the weekend, Nigerian government forces recaptured the city of Bama, the second biggest in northeasterly Borno state. Three local governments, Abadam, Kalabaldi and Gwoza, remain under Boko Haram control. The militants were progressively chased out of Adamawa and Yobe states since the start of the year, and cornered into an ever shrinking area of Borno, the heartland of their insurgency.

Cattle herders killed 82 people and wounded 25 in a village in central Nigeria over grazing rights we were told on Tuesday March 17, 2015. Police investigated the attack by Muslim Fulani herdsmen on the mostly Christian Egba ethnic group at the weekend in the remote village Agatu Iga in Benue state. Hundreds have been killed in the past year in clashes between the semi-nomadic, cattle-herding Fulani and the more settled communities that practice a mix of farming and cattle rearing. There was no indication the attack had anything to do with Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has killed thousands in a six-year insurgency mostly in the far north of Nigeria.

Dozens of Nigerian women who were forced to marry Boko Haram fighters were reportedly slaughtered by their "husbands" before a battle with troops in the northeast town of Bama we were told on Thursday March 19, 2015. The Islamist militants feared they would be killed by advancing soldiers or separated from their wives when they fled the town. They killed the women to prevent them from subsequently marrying soldiers or other so-called non-believers. The terrorists said they will not allow their wives to be married to infidels.

The Nigerian president has said the military hopes to recapture towns seized by Boko Haram within a month. Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking re-election on 28 March, said Boko Haram was “getting weaker and weaker every day”. Nigeria has claimed major gains against the Islamists with the help of coalition partners Cameroon, Chad and Niger, achieving in just over one month what for years it had failed to on its own. Two out of three of the worst-hit northeast states –Yobe and Adamawa– have been declared as cleared, while the third, Borno, is expected to be liberated soon. Major towns such as Bama and Dikwa are among 36 localities recaptured, with just three said to be still in rebel hands.

Soldiers from Niger and Chad who liberated the Nigerian town of Damasak from Boko Haram militants have discovered the bodies of at least 70 people, many with their throats slit, scattered under a bridge. The bodies were strewn beneath the concrete bridge on one of the main roads leading out of the town. At least one was decapitated.  Boko Haram has killed thousands of people in a six-year insurgency aimed at establishing an Islamic caliphate in north-east Nigeria. Damasak was seized by the Islamist group in November but recaptured by troops from Niger and Chad on Saturday March 21, 2015, as part of a multinational effort to wipe out the militants.

Two Chadian army helicopters bombed Nigerian Boko Haram positions on Sunday March 22, 2015, killing several dozen militants near a village on the border with Niger. Niger and Chadian soldiers have been fighting the Islamist militants in a joint mission with Nigeria and Cameroon since March 2, in a bid to end Boko Haram's six-year insurgency in northern Nigeria that is threatening regional stability. The helicopters destroyed several vehicles and motorcycles carrying fighters in the Nigerian village of Djaboullam, which lies east across the border from the Niger town of Diffa.

On Wednesday March 25, 2015, Nigeria has ordered the closure of all its land and sea borders ahead of Saturday's tightly contested elections. Intelligence reports indicated that foreigners planned to cross into Nigeria to vote. The presidential and parliamentary polls are expected to be the most tightly contested since military rule ended in 1999. Nigeria is also battling an insurgency along its northern-eastern border. Regional forces have been recapturing territory from the Boko Haram insurgents in the last six weeks.

Hundreds of civilians, including many children, have been kidnapped and are being used as human shields by Boko Haram extremists we were told on Wednesday March 25, 2015. Several hundred people were abducted by the Islamic militants as they retreated earlier this month from Damasak in northeastern Nigeria. Local reports say as many as 500 people were taken. The Islamic rebels went to Damasak’s primary schools and rounded up students and teachers and then retreated.

The Nigerian military has destroyed the headquarters of Boko Haram in their de facto capital city Gwoza. Several terrorists died while many are captured. Mopping up of entire Gwoza and her suburbs is ongoing. Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau declared the northeast Nigerian city to be the capital of a new Islamic caliphate after he seized the town in August. Earlier this month Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, formally recognising Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as their spiritual leader.

Nigeria's military has detained two Al Jazeera journalists in the northeast city of Maiduguri since Tuesday we were told on Thursday March 26, 2015. The journalists, Ahmed Idris and Ali Mustafa, are being kept in their hotel rooms until further notice. Their camera equipment had been confiscated. Nigeria's defence headquarters said on Wednesday that the two television reporters were "restrained to their hotel" after they had been monitored for "loitering" in areas where military operations were on-going against the country's Islamist insurgency.

Problems with new technology on Saturday March 28, 2015, forced voting to be extended in presidential elections as renewed Boko Haram violence hit the knife-edge polls. The Islamist militants were suspected of killing at least seven people in separate attacks in northeastern Gombe state, including at polling stations, while on Friday, 23 people were beheaded in Borno state. President Goodluck Jonathan was the most high-profile victim of the glitches with handheld readers, which scan biometric identity cards to authenticate voters to help cut electoral fraud. ---

Voting in Nigeria's presidential elections was extended one day, until Sunday March 29, 2015, in several areas because ballot paper arrived late or new digital voting card readers failed. The reading devices were being used for the first time in Nigeria to combat vote fraud, but it took even President Goodluck Jonathan more than 20 minutes to cast a ballot in his home state of Bayelsa because the scanner struggled to read his fingerprint. Other areas saw delays in the delivery of ballot paper. Attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants on polling stations killed at least 11 people, including voters waiting at polls. Also, hackers broke into the election commission's website. But many polling stations reported no problems and began publicly counting ballots after voting ended Saturday night.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen beheaded 23 people and set fire to homes in Buratai, northeast Nigeria, on the eve of Saturday March 28, 2015's general elections. At least half the village has been burnt.

Muhammadu Buhari has emerged victorious in Nigeria's bitterly contested presidential election we were told on Tuesday March 31, 2015. The 72-year-old former military leader stormed ahead as the final ballots were counted, ending an election which saw tens of millions of Nigerians turn out for the closest political contest Africa's biggest economy has ever seen. Buhari's APC gained 15.4 million votes versus 13.3 million for President Goodluck Jonathan and the People's Democratic Party (PDP.

Nigerians have elected as president a Muslim former military dictator who once pledged support for shari’a (Islamic law) to be implemented across Africa’s most populous country. Buhari is the first presidential candidate to unseat an incumbent at the ballot box, including in the four elections since Nigeria ditched military government in 1999. Jonathan phoned his rival to congratulate him. He urged his supporters not to mourn, but to celebrate “a legacy of democratic freedom, transparency, economic growth, and free and fair elections.”

Muhammadu Buhari, the president-elect of Nigeria, has pledged to crush the deadly six-year insurgency by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. The former military dictator was speaking in the capital, Abuja on Thursday April 2, 2015, a day after his victory over the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, in a largely peaceful election that has been praised by Barack Obama, David Cameron, Ban Ki-moon and other world leaders.

An explosion late Thursday April 2, 2015, outside a bus station in the northeast Nigerian city of Gombe ‎killed at least five people and injured more than a dozen others. The explosion outside the Bauchi Motor Park‎ happened after a woman left her explosives-laden handbag near a bus filling up with passengers. The bus was heading to the central Nigerian city of Jos. The woman pretended to be going to Jos and lingered around the bus, which was ‎waiting to fill up with passengers. The woman kept talking on the phone and dropped her bag beside the bus, pretending to be waiting for the bus to fill up. ---

Nigeria's delta region was hit by violence on Friday April 3, 2015, as gunmen killed nine people and, separately, militants blew up a gas pipeline. On Friday evening, in the town of Obrikom and the nearby village of Obor in Rivers state, gunmen went on a shooting spree. Some unknown armed men invaded the Obrikom and Obor communities killing nine, injuring two persons. The house of a parliamentary opposition candidate, Vincent Ogbagu of Buhari's All Progressives Congress, was set on fire.

Nigeria Friday April 3, 2015:

 

At least four people were killed Saturday April 4, 2015, when suspected Boko Haram fighters raided a local market in a village near the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri. Scores of Boko Haram gunmen stormed Kayamla village and opened fire on a weekly market, killing four traders. The attackers looted food stores and took away livestock from the market before fleeing into the bush.

The Nigerian military has ordered the release of two Aljazeera journalists who have been detained in Maiduguri, Borno for over a week after being accused of “loitering” around areas of military operations. Ahmed Idris and Ali Mustapha were released Saturday April 4, 2015, after spending ten days in detention in their hotel room. The duo were moving around “restricted areas” in Yobe and Borno states without protection, accreditation or clearance. The two Journalists also sued the Nigerian Army challenging their detention, which has been condemned by Nigerian and international civic groups.
 
Islamist Boko Haram militants disguised as preachers killed at least 24 people and wounded several others in an attack near a mosque in northeast Nigeria's Borno state we were told on Monday April 6, 2015. The attackers gathered people at a mosque in the remote village of Kwajafa, pretending to preach Islam. They then opened fire on them. ---

The Nigerian Military on Tuesday April 7, 2015, said it has recaptured terrorists’ camps in Alagarno. The Nigerian troops have successfully completed a raid on all terrorist camps in Alagarno in Borno State. Some weapons and other equipment were recovered from the military operation. Items captured from the insurgents include armoured vehicles, several arms and ammunition of various sizes and calibres, power generating sets, grenades and Improvised Explosives Devices. Others are bows and arrows, megaphones and rolls of copper cable which the terrorists used for the production of IEDs.

Nigerians are going to the polls to vote for state governors in the final round of the election process. Elections for 29 governors and all 36 state assemblies are taking place on Saturday April 11, 2015. Some of Nigeria's governors control huge budgets and are among the country's most influential politicians.

The Nigerian Army on Friday April 10, 2015, recaptured four towns from Boko Haram insurgents operating in the area. The towns include Bita, Izge, Yamteke and Uba in Askira Uba and Damboa Local Government Areas of Borno State. A soldier was lost and 10 others injured during the operation but many of the terrorists were killed and various weapons recovered from the locations.

A "mysterious" disease that kills patients within 24 hours has claimed at least 17 lives in a southeastern Nigerian town, Ode-Irele, we were told on Saturday April 18, 2015. The disease, whose symptoms include headache, weight loss, blurred vision and loss of consciousness, killed the victims within 24 hours of their falling ill. Laboratory tests have so far ruled out Ebola or any other virus.

Some 23 members of central Nigeria's Ologba and Egba communities have died in clashes over fishing rights we were told on Sunday April 19, 2015. The Egba community also accused the Ologba community of allowing Fulani herdsmen to pass through their territory when carrying out attacks that killed 82 people in March. The fighting took place in Nigeria's Benue State, which is on the border between Muslim and Christian territories. ---

On Saturday April 25, 2015, Nigerian military forces are in the “final stages” of a military offensive against the radical Islamist group Boko Haram as they close in on the heart of the terror group’s operation in the Sambisa Forest in the country’s northeast. Nigerian military forces had entered the Sambisa Forest and had killed a top Boko Haram commander in clashes, striking another blow to the group.

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have forced hundreds of soldiers to flee the Marte, a border town on Friday April 24, 2015. The terrorists, numbering over 2,000, appeared from various directions on Thursday and engaged the soldiers in Kirenowa town and adjoining communities in Marte. This is the third time Boko Haram has seized control of Marte, a key battleground of their six-year insurgency, which has killed more than 13,000 and left 1.5 million homeless.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot dead 21 people in northeast Nigeria who were trying to return home to recover abandoned food supplies we were told Monday April 27, 2015. The men, 21 of them, were stopped at Bultaram village by Boko Haram gunmen who shot them dead.

On Tuesday April 28, 2015, we were told that Nigerian terror group Boko Haram has reportedly changed its name to Islamic State's West African Province (Iswap), weeks after the insurgents pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (Isis) terror group. Boko Haram –a nickname given by Nigerians which translates from the Hausa language as "western education is forbidden"–  has caused thousands of deaths since its insurgence in north-eastern Nigeria started in 2009. The group's official name was Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, which means "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad".

An improvised explosive device detonated at a radio station in the central Nigerian state of Kogi Monday night April 27, 2015 killed at least four people (three security guards and an engineer). It was unclear whether the attack on the local language Ta'o FM station in Okene town was orchestrated by Nigeria's Boko Haram militants or the powerful organized robbery and kidnapping rings that operate in the West African country.

Hundreds of people have been found dead in the northeast Nigerian town of Damasak, apparently victims of the Boko Haram insurgency as we were told on Monday April 27, 2015, of fresh attacks by the militants. Reports of decomposing bodies littering the streets of Damasak came as president Muhammadu Buhari denounced the Islamists as a bogus religious group and vowed a hard line against them when he comes to power at the end of next month. --

Nigeria's army has rescued 200 girls and 93 women during a military operation against Boko Haram militants. The offensive took place in the Sambisa Forest, in the northeast of the country, and destroyed three militant camps. The rescued girls are not those abducted in April 2014 in Chibok.

Nigeria's military says it has rescued at least 160 more women and children who had been abducted by Boko Haram and were being held in the Sambisa Forest. On Thursday April 30, 2015, we were told that that those rescued include around "60 women of various ages and around 100 children". At least one woman and one soldier were reportedly killed in the fighting during the rescue. Eight other women and four soldiers were also injured.

Up to 150 more women and children have been rescued from Boko Haram extremists in the remote Sambisa Forest; some of the women fought their rescuers fiercely. On Thursday April 30, 2015 a senior army officer said the women fired on shocked troops in the village of Nobita a week ago, with Boko Haram Islamist insurgents using the women to shield their main fighting force. 12 women fighters and seven soldiers died in a fierce firefight. The Nigerian military first reported rescuing almost 300 women and children in the Sambisa Forest on Tuesday after deploying ground troops into the forest. More than 100 additional girls and 50 more women have also been rescued.

Nigeria's military has rescued 234 more women and children from a forested area of northeastern Nigeria controlled by Boko Haram extremists who have kidnapped hundreds of girls in recent years we were told on Saturday May 2, 2015. The latest rescue brings the total for the week to more than 677 females the Nigerian military claims to have rescued.

Nigerian troops battled militiamen in central Nigeria on Sunday May 3, 2015, after they destroyed several villages and killed scores of people including six soldiers who had their eyes gorged out and tongues cut off. The group is not part of Islamist militant group Boko Haram. A resident of the area said the army had killed 20 people in retaliation for the dead soldiers, who he said were murdered Saturday night. Those killed belonged to the Tarok ethnic group, members of which had allegedly engaged in cattle rustling.

Gunmen have killed dozens of civilians, mostly women and children, in Nigeria in a series of attacks across villages in the country’s central-eastern Plateau State. On Sunday May 3, 2015, we were told that the fatalities were caused when heavily-armed gunmen in military uniforms went on an indiscriminate shooting rampage in Kardarko and nearby villages on Saturday.

Boko Haram fighters stoned their captives to death as rescuers approached, while other girls and women held by the jihadists were crushed by an armoured car and killed by an exploding landmine as they walked to freedom. Through tears, smiles and eyes filled with pain, the survivors of months in the hands of the Islamic extremists told their stories to The Associated Press on Sunday May 3, 2015, their first day out of the war zone.

Community leaders in central Nigeria have accused government troops of killing dozens of civilians and burning villages following the deaths of six soldiers at the hands of tribesmen. Troops arrived on Saturday night May 2, 2015 and opened fire indiscriminately. The army denies killing civilians but a spokesman said one of its units had engaged a local militia group. Last week six soldiers were killed and mutilated by tribesmen -reportedly members of the Tarok tribe- who were allegedly involved in cattle rustling. Soldiers stormed some villages in Wase. Villages belonging to Tarok and other tribes were razed and many lives, men, women and children, were lost. Up to 80 people had been killed. The military denied soldiers had targeted civilians, saying that troops were battling militiamen in the area.

Some 220 schoolgirls abducted by Nigerian terror group Boko Haram (now Iswap) in April 2014 have been married off to insurgents and sold into slavery. The claim was made by a civilian recently rescued by the Nigerian army following her abduction by Boko Haram in Dikwa, Borno state, in April. Aisha Abbas, 45, said the insurgents told her the Chibok girls were "married off this year. Some sold to slavery, then others (militants) each married two or four of the girls". Abbas was among some 700 people – mainly women and children – recently rescued by the Nigerian army which, aided by troops from neighbouring countries, entered what it has been deemed as "the terrorists' last known stronghold" in the Sambisa forest, on the border with Cameroon. Nearly one third of the girls freed by the army were "visibly pregnant", spreading fears they had been raped by the militants.

Boko Haram fighters killed older boys and men in front of their families before taking women and children into the forest where many died of hunger and disease, freed captives said on Sunday May 3, 2015, after they were brought to a government refugee camp. The Nigerian army rescued hundreds of women and children last week from the Islamist fighters in northern Nigeria's Sambisa Forest in a major operation that has turned international attention to the plight of hostages. After days on the road in pickup trucks, hundreds were released on Sunday into the care of authorities at a refugee camp in the eastern town of Yola, to be fed and treated for injuries. They spoke to reporters for the first time: "They didn't allow us to move an inch," said one of the freed women, Asabe Umaru. "If you needed the toilet, they followed you. We were kept in one place. We were under bondage. "We thank God to be alive today. We thank the Nigerian army for saving our lives". Two hundred and seventy-five women and children, some with heads or limbs in bandages, arrived in the camp late on Saturday. Nearly 700 kidnap victims have been freed from the Islamist group's forest stronghold since Tuesday, with the latest group of 234 women and children liberated on Friday.

On Friday May 8, 2015, two militants have attacked a business college in Potiskum in the north-eastern Nigerian state of Yobe. At least six students were seriously injured by gunfire, but dozens more were hurt (at least 50) as they tried to escape. The gunman was accompanied by a suicide bomber, who blew himself up in the car park.

Suspected Boko Haram extremists attacked a business school in northeast Nigeria on Sunday May 10, 2015, with gunfire and two bomb blasts before being overcome by security forces. A suicide bomber died when he blew himself up prematurely in the car park of the College of Administrative and Business Studies in Potiskum. A second bomb exploded in the college dormitory, but all the students apparently were already in classrooms. Five students were wounded by gunfire, and another 45 people were being treated for injuries sustained as they jumped out of windows and over walls to escape the attackers. ---

Suspected Boko Haram militants attacked Nigeria's northern city of Maiduguri in Borno state on Wednesday May 13, 2015, from a cashew plantation a few kilometres from the Giwa barracks. Residents said they heard heavy shooting and explosions on the outskirts and began fleeing their homes.

On Thursday May 14, 2015, the Nigerian army has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the town of Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, following an attack by terror group Boko Haram (now Iswap). Militiamen armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a military base in the town, clashing with the army before they withdrew.

Twenty-eight children have died from lead poisoning from illegal gold mining in a remote west-central village while doctors still are treating thousands from an earlier outbreak. Dozens more children are sick in the Rafi area of Niger state and action must be taken quickly if they are not to suffer irreversible neurological damage we were told on Friday May 15, 2015.

Clashes between Boko Haram fighters and the Nigerian army resulted in the death of more than 60 people in Borno state capital Maiduguri on Wednesday May 13, 2015, a day before curfew was put in place. Most of the dead were Boko Haram Islamists while some soldiers and residents were also killed. The Boko Haram militants, equipped with heavy weapons, launched a major offensive against the seventh division of the Nigerian army. Thirty-five members of the terrorists including women suicide bombers were killed by troops, while 27 residents near Kayamula and Alau Dam villages were slaughtered by insurgents after they were repelled and chased away by troops.

A young girl on Saturday May 16, 2015, carried out a suicide attack at a bus station in Damaturu in northeastern Nigeria, killing seven people and injuring 31. The girl aged about 12 detonated an explosive under her clothes as she approached the station’s perimeter fence. Meanwhile, Boko Haram recaptured the strategic town of Marte in northeastern Nigeria’s restive Borno state. The town, located along a strategic trading route between Nigeria and neighbouring Cameroon and Chad, has traded hands between the jihadists and government troops numerous times since 2013.

On Monday May 18, 2015, we were told that the Nigeria's army has cleared 10 more camps used by Boko Haram in the north-east of the country. There was a fierce battle around Dure camp, which a statement describes as one of the most "prominent" hideouts for the militants. The army has recaptured most of the vast area the militants had seized but the Islamists remain active. Thousands have been killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria, in attacks carried out by Boko Haram since 2009. ---

On Tuesday May 19, 2015, we were told that hundreds of women and girls captured by Boko Haram have been raped, many repeatedly, a deliberate strategy to dominate rural residents and possibly even create a new generation of Islamist militants in Nigeria. The women described being locked in houses by the dozen, at the beck and call of fighters who forced them to have sex, sometimes with the specific goal of impregnating them.

A suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber killed at least six people on Tuesday May 19, 2015, at a cattle market in the rural town of Garkida, in Nigeria's northeastern Adamawa state. Witnesses said up to 10 people had been killed in the busy market when the blast stuck.

Nearly 600 Nigerian officers and troops faced charges before a court-martial Wednesday May 20, 2015. An unprecedented number of soldiers is believed to be on trial for alleged offenses related to the ongoing fight against an Islamic uprising in the northeast. These 579 officers and troopers are before two courts-martial taking place in Abuja, the capital, to ensure a "quick dispensation of justice, discipline and professionalism." Last year, three courts-martial condemned 72 soldiers to death by firing squad for alleged cowardice, mutiny, aiding the enemy and other charges related to fighting Boko Haram extremists.

Nigeria’s military on Saturday May 23, 2015, claimed the killing of scores of Boko Haram insurgents and the rescue of 20 more hostages (women and children) during an operation in the notorious Sambisa forest, an Islamist stronghold. One soldier died while 10 others were wounded in the assault on rebel bases. More than 700 hostages, primarily women and children, have reportedly been freed during the military’s assault on Sambisa, which Boko Haram has used as a base for several years.

On Sunday May 24, 2015, an agreement was reached to end a crippling fuel crisis in Nigeria that had left the country at a virtual standstill just days before a new government is installed. Banks had begun to close early and telecoms firms warned their mobile phone networks could be shut down because of fuel shortages, which left domestic airlines grounded and saw petrol stations run dry, hitting businesses and homes. But an end to the crisis was reached after the main unions and industrial groups responsible for supplying and distributing the majority of petrol and diesel in Nigeria met the government for talks.

Boko Haram fighters killed several people and destroyed dozens of homes in a raid on a town in northeast Nigeria's Borno state we were told on Sunday May 24, 2015. Scores of Islamist militants in trucks and on motorcycles stormed the town of Gubio, 95 kilometres by road north of the state capital, Maiduguri, on Saturday night.

Boko Haram militants have killed at least 43 people including 2 children in a five-hour assault on the town of Gubio in northeastern Nigeria's Borno state we were told on Tuesday May 26, 2015. The latest attack, which involved a convoy of around 50 Boko Haram members storming Gubio, lasted for around five hours on Saturday afternoon. More than 400 houses had been burnt by the insurgents.
 
Suspected Fulani herdsmen killed at least 23 people in central Nigeria, the latest clash in a long-running battle with farming communities in the restive region we were told Tuesday May 26, 2015. There was an attack by unknown gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen on three villages in Logo local government area, (Benue) state. 23 people were confirmed killed. ---

The Nigeria Army on Tuesday May 26, 2015, at the Rukuba Barracks in Jos, Plateau State, dismissed about 200 soldiers from service for their failure to capture the Sambisa forest –a notorious hideout for Boko Haram terrorists in Borno State. They were dismissed for laxity and cowardice in the course of duty.

Nigeria's new president was sworn in on Friday May 29, 2015, and pledged to tackle Boko Haram "head on," asserting the fight against the Islamic extremists wouldn't be won until hundreds of schoolgirls abducted last year and other kidnapping victims were brought home alive. The inauguration turned into a nationwide celebration by Nigerians welcoming their country's newly reinforced democracy after Buhari became the first candidate to defeat a sitting president at the polls since the end of military rule in 1999. With dancing and the release of white doves symbolizing peace, Nigerians hailed the handover of power in an African nation marked by superlatives: the most populous nation, the biggest oil producer, the largest economy.

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in Nigeria's Maiduguri city on Saturday afternoon May 30, 2015, killing at least 18 people - there were also more than 30 wounded- after a night-time attack by Boko Haram insurgents on the outskirts. The attacks occurred a day after the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari, who swore to crush the Islamist militant group and move the command centre for military operations away from the capital Abuja to Maiduguri. A male bomber suspected to be Boko Haram is said to have entered a mosque near the (Monday) Market to detonate. The overnight shooting took place around the Damboa road near the small settlement of Mule, about 10 km from Maiduguri, a city of two million people. A rocket launcher from Boko Haram hit a house around the Bulumkutu area and killed five people; six corpses were found in different locations. The militants tried to cross trenches dug around the city. These attacks follow twin bomb blasts early on Friday in Tashan Alade, a remote Borno town, which killed at least seven people and injured 12 others.

A bomb went off in the Gamboru market in Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri on Sunday May 31, 2015. One person was killed. Three others were injured.

Boko Haram (now Iswap) has raided two towns in the north of Nigeria hours after it carried out a bomb attack on a mosque in Borno State's capital Maiduguri, killing at least 26 people and injuring several others. The group torched public buildings, including a police station, a law court and government-built houses in Galda and Fika, in Yobe State, on Sunday 31 May, 2015. The terrorists forced policemen to flee and residents to run indoors during the raid in which they also burned the towns' telecom masts. Soldiers were deployed from here but they were overpowered ‎by the gunmen. Communication with the area has been disrupted as a result of the burning of telecom masts in the attack‎s.

Sixty-nine people burnt to death in southeast Nigeria after a petrol tanker lost control, rammed into a busy bus station and burst into flames we were told on Monday June 1, 2015.

A bomb wounded four people Sunday May 31, 2015, in a market in Maiduguri, a day after 30 people were killed in the northeastern Nigerian city by a suicide bomber and attackers firing rocket-propelled grenades. Sunday's blast came from explosives concealed in bags of charcoal at the Gamboru market.

A bomb blast at a busy meat market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Tuesday June 2, 2015, killed about 50 people. The bomb, which was concealed under a butcher's table in the market, went off killing shoppers and passersby.

President Muhammadu Buhari is likely to keep the oil portfolio for himself in the new Nigerian cabinet, rather than trust anyone else with the source of most of Nigeria's revenue and traditional fount of corruption. Nigeria’s oil sector is so dirty that nobody’s hands are clean enough to do the “surgical changes” needed.

Senior military officers in Nigeria should be investigated for war crimes including the murder, starvation, suffocation and torturing to death of 8,000 people, Amnesty International has said on Wednesday June 3, 2015. Amnesty set out the case against five senior Nigerian officers in a 133-page report based on hundreds of interviews, including with military sources, and leaked defence ministry documents. During security operations against Boko Haram in the north-east, it says the armed forces “committed countless acts of torture; hundreds, if not thousands, of Nigerians have become victims of enforced disappearance; and at least 7,000 people have died in military detention as a result of starvation, extreme overcrowding and denial of medical assistance. ---

A French tourist was shot dead and his wife injured in a suspected robbery in southeastern Nigeria on Thursday June 4, 2015. Denis Magnan was shot in the leg and died from his injuries. The 62-year-old was a retired army chief warrant officer and lived with his wife Liana Lavaud, a former nurse in her early 50s, in Villedieu-sur-Indre, west of the city. The shooting happened in Ebonyi state on Tuesday. The couple were French tourists and they were camped in the bush when they were attacked. The man was killed while his wife was injured and some valuables, including cash, were taken away from them.

A bomb at a market in the town of Jimeta, northeastern Nigeria, has killed around 30 people on Thursday June 4, 2015. The device was planted in a three-wheeled motorized scooter inside the market in Adamawa state a few minutes after a female suicide killed two people at a checkpoint in Maiduguri.

On Thursday June 4, 2015, two suicide bombers attacked a northeast Nigerian market hours after a blast outside a military barracks, as the death toll from suspected Boko Haram violence during President Muhammadu Buhari's first week in office hit 82. Two assailants approached the Jimeta Main Market and faked a fight to attract victims before blowing themselves up. At least 31 people were killed and 38 others injured. The Yola blast followed a suspected suicide bombing in Maiduguri, capital of neighbouring Borno state that killed at least four people when a truck carrying firewood rammed into a checkpoint outside a military barracks.

The violence on Thursday June 4, 2015, came as Buhari ended his first foreign trip since taking office. He visited Chad and Niger, which with Cameroon are Nigeria's key allies in the battle against an Islamist uprising blamed for 15,000 deaths since 2009. Buhari urged closer regional security cooperation and thanked Nigeria's neighbours for their efforts to date while demanding more action from a multi-national force battling the insurgents on the frontline. Buhari made the trip because he cannot afford early setbacks against Boko Haram and needs Niger and Chad to ensure progress.

The Nigerian military on Friday June 5, 2015, said it killed two suicide bombers leading a band of terrorists, in a repel attack by troops in Shetimari in Borno State. The insurgents died as troops succeeded in repelling the terrorists attack Thursday evening. 12 rifles and a machine gun were captured from the terrorists group. Rocket propelled grenades and some bombs were also recovered. Troops conducting mopping up operation were still combing the area while others are in pursuit of those who are on the run.

The death toll from a suicide bombing at a market in the northeastern Nigerian town of Yola rose to 45 on Friday June 5, 2015. Ten more people died on Friday. Around 40 people were wounded.

A bomb blast hit a cattle market in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno late on Saturday June 6, 2015, killing as many as 16 people. The attack bore the hallmarks of Islamist Boko Haram militants.

A female suicide bomber killed two people and injured four others in northeast Nigeria, while two people were injured when a bomb exploded near a military checkpoint we were told on Sunday June 7, 2015.

Three women wearing explosive vests blew up near Maiduguri in an apparent failed suicide bombing attack against Nigeria's northeastern city we were told Thursday June 11, 2015. Dozens of people died in suicide bombings in Maiduguri last week, all blamed on the extremist Boko Haram group, which regularly attacks the city as part of its six year battle to impose Islamic law in the north. Despite the attacks Maiduguri International Airport will soon reopen. It has been closed since a December 2013 attack on a nearby air base

Boko Haram gunmen killed at least 43 people and burnt down three villages in northeast Nigeria we were told Thursday June 11, 2015. Dozens of rebels on motorcycles stormed Matangale, Buraltima and Dirmanti Borno state on Tuesday, opening fire on villagers before looting and burning homes. Matangale was worst hit by the attack as the attackers opened fire at an open well outside the village where residents had gathered to fetch drinking water and do their laundry.

Nigeria and its neighbours agreed today Friday June 12, 2015, to set up a joint military force to counter Boko Haram, a sign of President Muhammadu Buhari's intent to crush the Islamist militant group early in his tenure. At a one-day summit at Abuja airport, the 72-year-old former military ruler, who was inaugurated just two weeks ago, welcomed the leaders of Chad and Niger, and the defence minister of Cameroon. A statement afterwards said the joint force, based in the Chad capital Ndjamena, would be up and running by July 30 with a permanent Nigerian leader, a concession to Buhari's opposition to rotating commanders. Squashing the insurgency was one of Buhari's main campaign promises, in contrast to his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, who was accused of dithering and incompetence, particularly after the kidnapping of more than 200 girls from a school in the town of Chibok in April last year.

Two bomb attacks in Nigeria's northeastern city of Potiskum killed 10 people -eight males and two females- on Monday June 15, 2015. The first bomb exploded at around 1 p.m. in the office of a group set up to defend local people against such attacks. A suicide bomber detonated a device at an outdoor tea drinking area a few minutes later. In neighbouring Chad, the government blamed Boko Haram for two attacks in the capital N'Djamena on Monday which killed 27 people, including four suspected fighters from the Islamist group.

A large sack of home-made bombs discovered at an abandoned Boko Haram camp exploded, killing 63 people we were told Wednesday June 17, 2015. The explosives were found by civilian self-defense fighters who carried the bag filled with metal objects to the nearby town of Monguno. A curious crowd gathered to inspect the bag, which is why there were so many victims when it exploded.

On Thursday June 18, 2015, we were told that about 70 people have died in Nigeria after drinking home-brewed gin that was found to contain large amounts of methanol. Deaths from consuming the gin –known locally as 'ogogoro'– were recorded in five local government areas in the country's oil-rich south.

The central African country of Chad conducted airstrikes against Boko Haram sites in neighboring Nigeria on Wednesday June 17, 2015, and announced it has banned burqas, the head-to-toe garment worn by some Muslim women, after twin bombings earlier this week by veiled attackers. The Chad army and security forces hit Boko Haram bases and related sites destroying six bases and killing several militants. Prime Minister Kalzeube Payimi Deubet announced the burqa ban Wednesday following a call with religious leaders. The move was at the direction of President Idriss Deby Itno, after as many as 23 people were killed Monday in the capital, N'Djamena, in two attacks -one at the National School of Police and the other targeting the Central Office of the Police. The four attackers were also killed, and more than 100 people were wounded.

On Wednesday assailants suspected to be Fulani herdsmen hacked to death eight farmers in northeast Nigeria we were told on Thursday June 18, 2015. Around 30 machete-wielding assailants accosted the farmers on their way to their crop field in Sondi village in Wukari district of Taraba state. The victims included six men, a woman and a boy of around seven years.

Chad's military said it had carried out air strikes against Boko Haram bases in Nigeria in retaliation for twin suicide bombings in Chad this week that killed at least 34 people. The air raids caused heavy human and material damage to six of the Islamist militants' bases we were told on Wednesday June 17, 2015. Nigerian authorities denied reports that the attacks had taken place on its soil, saying they were likely to have instead hit targets in neighbouring Niger.

Two girls blew themselves up on Monday June 22, 2015, near a crowded mosque in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, killing about 30 people. One teenager exploded as she approached the mosque crowded with people from the nearby Baga Road fish market, performing afternoon prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. The second teen appeared to run away and blew up further away, killing only herself. There were many injured being sent to the hospitals.

About 40 people have been killed by suspected Boko Haram militants who torched houses and shot people as they fled in two villages in northeast Nigeria's Borno state we were told on Wednesday June 24, 2015. The attackers, who arrived on motorcycles and vehicles mounted with guns, shot residents and looted shops in the villages of Debiro Biu and Debiro Hawul late on Monday night and into Tuesday morning. They were shooting sporadically and then they started looting shops and setting places ablaze. More than 100 people have been killed in northeast Nigeria in the past few weeks in a spate of bombings, mostly in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Gunmen shot dead two policemen and abducted two Lebanese nationals on Wednesday June 24, 2015, from a construction site in Nigeria's southern delta region. The gunmen approached in two speed boats, killed two policemen guarding the site in a gun fight, snatched the two foreign workers and fled in the craft. The attack was in the Ogbia local area in Bayelsa state, the same area where three expatriate construction workers were kidnapped in November.

Two suicide bombers killed at least three people and injured 16 in the capital of the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno on Saturday June 27, 2-15, the latest in a string of deadly attacks by suspected Islamist militants. The two women tried to get into a hospital but were stopped by security guards at the gate and blew themselves up.

Some of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria have been forced to join Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Some are now being used to terrorise other captives, and are even carrying out killings themselves. Boko Haram has killed some 5,500 civilians in Nigeria since 2014. Two-hundred-and-nineteen schoolgirls from Chibok, are still missing, more than a year after they were kidnapped from their school in northern Nigeria. Many of those seized are Christians. Three women who claim they were held in the same camps as some of the Chibok girls said that some of them have been brainwashed and are now carrying out punishments on behalf of the militants.

At least five people have been killed and 10 wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Molai leprosy hospital on the outskirts of the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri we were told Sunday June 28, 2015.  The bomber, who tried to gain access to the hospital, detonated his explosives outside the building on Saturday. The bomber was one of three men who were dropped off near the hospital by a SUV.

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up near a hospital in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria on Wednesday July 1, 2015, shortly after Vice President Yemi Osinbajo arrived in the city to visit camps for people fleeing a militant Islamist insurgency. The blasts injured two people near the gates of a hospital where suicide bombers killed three people and injured 16 last Saturday. The second blast occurred two minutes after the first one, killed the bomber and injured two other people nearby. ---

Nearly 150 people are reported to have been killed by suspected Boko Haram Islamist militants in attacks in Nigeria's north-eastern Borno state. The gunmen stormed the village of Kukawa near Lake Chad on Wednesday evening July 1, 2015, killing 97 people, including women and children. On Tuesday, the militants shot dead 48 men after they had finished prayers in two villages near the town of Monguno. The women have been spared. Monguno was recently recaptured from Boko Haram. At least 23 people died in the town last month after a confiscated Boko Haram bomb exploded during celebrations to mark the successful military operation against the Islamist group. At least 17,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since 2009, when Boko Haram launched its violent uprising to try to impose militant Islamist rule.

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents attacked the outskirts of a state capital in northeastern Nigeria on Friday July 3, 2015. Heavy gunfire was heard coming from the fringes of Maiduguri, the capital of Bornoa state, for about half an hour on Friday evening. Insurgents attacked a village on the edge of the city but were repulsed. Boko Haram fighters tried to take Maiduguri a number of times earlier this year before an army offensive drove them out of large chunks of territory. The militants have since resorted to deadly hit-and-run attacks on settlements and using suicide bombers.

A young female suicide bomber killed 12 worshippers and wounded 7 Thursday when she blew herself up in a mosque in northeastern Nigeria we were told Friday July 3, 2015. The bomber was a girl aged around 15 who was seen around the mosque when worshippers were preparing for the afternoon prayers. The attack was in Malari village. adding 12 had died and seven were injured. People asked her to leave because she had no business there and they were not‎ comfortable with her in view of the spate of suicide attacks by female Boko Haram members. She made to leave‎ but while the people were inside the mosque for the prayers she ran from a distance into the mosque and blew herself up.

On Friday July 3, 2015, two female bombers targeted crowded areas along the highway where locals sell fruits. Eight people including the Boko Haram bomber died in the first explosion while three were killed by the second blast along same highway, located southeast of the state, about 45 kilometres to Maiduguri.
 
A suicide bomber has attacked a church in Nigeria, capping a week in which more than 200 people died in Boko Haram violence. At least five worshippers were killed in Sunday July 5, 2015's attack as they were entering the church in Potiskum in the north-east of the country. The recent attacks include:

Six suicide bombers detonated themselves in the northeast Nigerian village of Zabarmari, about 10 kilometers from Maiduguri we were tol Saturday July 4, 2015. Nigerian troops recovered a vehicle full of improvised explosive devices after the attack. Several female suicide bombers detonated themselves amid fleeing residents.

Two bombs blamed on the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram exploded at a crowded mosque and a Muslim restaurant in Nigeria’s central city of Jos, killing 44 people we were told on Monday July 6. 2015. The blasts on Sunday night came hours after a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a crowded evangelical Christian church service in the north-eastern city of Potiskum, killing at least five people. Also on Sunday, extremists returned to north-eastern villages attacked three days earlier, killing nine villagers and burning down 32 churches and about 300 homes. In Jos, at least 44 people died and 67 were wounded. Explosion at the Yantaya mosque came as a leading cleric from an organisation that preaches religious co-existence was addressing a crowd.

A bomb attack has killed at least 25 people and wounded 32 others in northern Nigeria's Zaria city on Tuesday July 7, 2015. A suspected suicide bomber targeted civil servants at a government building in the city. It came a day after police chief Solomon Arase announced new measures to curb the rise in bombings. They include:

A bomb went off near federal high court in Nigeria's oil hub Port Harcourt in the delta region on Thursday July 9, 2015; there were no casualties. The blast occurred when the court was about to rule on whether elections for certain local government officials earlier this year were legal.

On Friday July 10, 2015, we were told that Boko Haram Islamist militants have attacked the northern Nigerian town of Buni Yadi, which they lost to a Nigerian army offensive in March. There are not yet any information on casualties after the attack.

Twelve people died and three were injured in an explosion during repair work at an Eni SpA crude oil pipeline in Nigeria. The victims worked on a maintenance team for a local service company we were told Friday July 10, 2015. The Tebidaba-Clough Creek pipeline in the Niger delta was previously “damaged by acts of sabotage.” The company said it is still investigating the cause of Thursday’s blast.

Nigeria Saturday July 11, 2015:

At least 14 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a crowded market in Chad's capital on Saturday July 11, 2015, just days after Boko Haram claimed a previous bombing in the city that left 38 people dead. The attack in N'Djamena by a man disguised as a woman in a full-face veil came after a botched bombing of a bus station in the restive capital of Nigeria's Borno state, Maiduguri, which killed two pedestrians. ---

At least five people were shot and killed on Saturday evening July 11, 2015, in a small community a few kilometres from Nigeria's largest refinery in the oil hub Port Harcourt in Rivers state. Gunmen on motorbikes rode around Agbonchia for about an hour shooting at people. 11 people connected to the attack had been arrested.

On Wednesday July 15, 2015, twin blasts have rocked a market in the northeast Nigerian city of Gombe, leaving 30 people dead. At least two suicide bombers were involved in the attack.

On Thursday July 16, 2015, we were told that the two explosions at a market in Nigeria's north-eastern city of Gombe have killed at least 49 people –including many children- and injured dozens of others. The market was crowded with people doing last-minute shopping on the eve of the Eid festival marking the end of the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan.

At least nine people have died in explosions at prayers for the Muslim festival of Eid in the Nigerian town of Damaturu on Saturday July 18, 2015. The two female suicide bombers included a 10-year-old girl. There were two blasts at a venue where volunteers were waiting to screen worshippers.

Suspected Boko Haram militants burned down houses, including the family home of Nigeria's new army chief, in a village in the northeast of the country on Tuesday July 21, 2015. At least two people were killed and eight injured in Buratai in Borno state but Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Baratai, was not present at the time of the attack in the early hours.

Nigeria's new president has said on Wednesday July 22, 2015, he is willing to negotiate with Boko Haram leaders for the release of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped last year. A previous prisoner-swap attempt for the girls' release ended in failure.

At least two bombs have ripped through two bus stations in the northern city of Gombe on Wednesday July 22, 2015. At least 29 people have been killed - and 60 wounded- in the blasts. Earlier in the day, suicide bombers killed at least 11 people in neighbouring Cameroon.

Suspected Boko Haram Takfiri militants have gunned down at least eight people during a raid on a village in the troubled northeast Nigeria Thursday July 23, 2015. The heavily-armed militants attacked the village of Pompomari in the northeastern Borno State on Wednesday.

The United States on Friday July 24, 2015, condemned Boko Haram suicide attacks in Cameroon and Nigeria as "horrific and indiscriminate" and deplored the militant group's use of children as bombers. Multiple bomb blasts at two bus stations in Gombe, Nigeria, killed 37 people on Wednesday, while two suicide bomb attacks killed at least 13 people in northern Cameroon.

A bloody and terrifying raid by Boko Haram on Friday July 24, 2015, left at least 25 people dead in three villages in eastern Nigeria's Adamawa state. Adamawa state borders Borno state, Boko Haram's birth place and main stronghold. Storming in on motorcycles, the gunmen attacked the neighboring villages of Kopa, Maikadire and Yaffa shooting and killing residents. The gunmen are former residents who joined Boko Haram and left to live in Boko Haram camps. After the Nigerian military launched a campaign of bombing raids and ground assaults on their camps, those Boko Haram militants sought to escape by returning to their villages. Villagers tipped off military authorities and the returnees were arrested. The attacks were retaliation against those villages. ---

On Saturday July 25, 2015, a suicide bomb attack has left 15 people dead and around 50 injured in northern Nigeria. The blast, set off by a female suicide bomber, in the northeastern city of Damataru came less than a week after a suicide bomber killed three policeman at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city.

On Tuesday July 28, 2015, we were told that a former government minister in Nigeria stole $6bn of public money. US officials informed President Muhammadu Buhari of the alleged theft during his visit to Washington last month. The name of the minister who allegedly stole the money was not revealed. During his visit to the US, Mr Buhari asked the US to help recover $150bn "stolen in the past decade and held in foreign bank accounts".

Newly-elected President Muhammadu Buhari will make his first official visit to one-time enemy Cameroon Wednesday July 29, 2015, to ease tensions and bolster support for a regional army to fight the Boko Haram Islamic uprising spilling across borders.

At least 25 people were killed by suspected Boko Haram Islamist militants in raids on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning July 28, 2015, on three communities in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state. Fighters in pick-up trucks attacked the town of Dille and two smaller communities in the Askira/Uba area in Borno state about 250 km south of Maiduguri the capital of Borno state and the epicenter of the insurgency. Vigilantes resisted the attack.

Nigeria Tuesday July 28, 2015:

A suicide bomber struck a crowded market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Friday July 31, 2015, killing six people. Eleven people were wounded in the attack, the latest in a spate of bombings and shootings that have killed more than 600 people across the north. The driver of a motorised rickshaw detonated a device at the entrance to the crowded market. The wreckage of the tricycle used by the bomber was there. ---

Suspected members of terrorist group Boko Haram have attacked multiple villages in Nigeria and Cameroon, killing at least 15 people. The militants mounted an early-morning assault on the Cameroonian village of Tchakarmari, near the northern border with Nigeria. They burned houses to the ground, killing at least seven people and kidnapping several others. A group of the militants on Sunday August 2, 2015, assaulted Kobachwa and other villages in the Madagali district of Adamawa state, in northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram militants reportedly seized the Madagali district in August 2014, but the Nigerian military claimed to have cleared the militants out in March.

Nigeria is going to establish a domestic weapons factory in an effort to cut its dependence on imported arms we were told Thursday August 6, 2015. The defence ministry had been told to develop plans for a "modest military industrial complex”. The US has refused to sell arms to Nigeria citing human rights abuses.

Suspected pirates traveling by speedboat killed four soldiers and a policeman and stole weapons in a raid on a military base in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta region we were told on Saturday August 8, 2015. The gunmen attacked the mixed military and police Joint Task Force (JTF) base at Nembe in Bayelsa state on Friday. The suspected pirates took weapons from the base.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen killed four people on Sunday August 9, 2015, in a road ambush in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno. A car carrying six people came under attack on the Damboa-Biu road near the remote village of Nwajurko. Four of the passengers were shot dead by Boko Haram while two others who fled the ambush sustained injuries partly from gunshots.

The Nigerian military on Sunday August 9, 2015, has arrested six militants in the country's oil-rich Niger Delta after suspected pirates killed four soldiers and a policeman in an attack on an army base in the region. The armed group's camp was in response to Friday's deadly attack, when gunmen in four speed boats stormed the Joint Task Force (JTF) base in Nembe in southern Bayelsa state. The militants' camp was destroyed by JTF troops while six suspects comprising of four male and two female (suspects) were arrested. Large quantities of arms and live ammunitions were also recovered from the camp. Three speed boats, communication gadgets and generators were also recovered from the suspects, some of whom had managed to escape. The military spokesman declined to say whether the six suspects under arrest had taken part in Friday's attack on the military base in Nembe.

A bomb attack on a packed market in northeastern Nigeria bearing the hallmarks of Boko Haram killed around 50 people on Tuesday August 11, 2015. The explosion happened in the town of Sabon Gari in Borno state, which is the heartland of the Islamist militant group.

The Nigerian-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram has a new leader. We do not know what had happened to Abubakar Shekau, but he had been replaced by Mahamat Daoud, who has not been heard of before. Mr Shekau has not featured in the group's recent videos, leading to speculation that he has been killed. Mr Daoud is thought to be open to dialogue.

Rescuers pulled bodies of two crew members from the water Thursday August 13, 2015, when a helicopter flying from an offshore oil rig plunged into a lagoon in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos. An Oklahoma man among six killed. Four bodies were recovered Wednesday. The helicopter crashed Wednesday afternoon on approach to Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Six people are hospitalized with injuries. All but Wyatt from Oklahoma appear to be Nigerian. ---

A suspected Boko Haram bomber was killed and a security guard was wounded Saturday August 15, 2015, in a botched suicide attack on a crowded market in northeast Nigeria's Borno state. The attacker detonated his explosives at the entrance to the weekly market in Rumurigo village in Askira Uba district when vigilantes insisted on searching him. He then blew himself up, injuring a vigilante on the arm.

A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device strapped on her body near a market in the northeastern Nigerian State of Borno we were told on Saturday August 15, 2015. Four people were killed and seven injured when the explosive went off at a checkpoint, targeting the vigilantes at the entrance of the Ramirgo market. The blast damaged two patrol vehicles.

On Saturday August 15, 2015, an audio message has emerged of Nigerian-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau, in which he denies he has been replaced. In the message, addressed to the leader of the Islamic State militant group to whom Boko Haram has pledged allegiance, Mr Shekau said he was still in command. He had not featured in the group's recent videos, prompting speculation he had been killed or incapacitated. Last week the Chadian president said Mr Shekau had been replaced. The Nigerian army said it did not matter whether he was alive or dead.

Boko Haram extremists on Monday August 17, 2015, raided a village in northeast Nigeria's Borno state near the border with Niger, killing seven people. Dozens of gunmen stormed Awonori, a farming and herding village near the fishing town of Damasak, and carted away food supplies and livestock. The gunmen came in vans and on motorcycles, besieged the village and opened fire on residents as they were having breakfast before moving to their farms. The attack forced the villagers to flee but they returned after the assailants had left.

Nigeria is to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers to boost security and help tackle youth employment we were told Tuesday August 18, 2015. More CCTV cameras would also be installed in cities and major towns to curb crime. Last week, President Buhari gave his security commanders three months to defeat the insurgents. ---

Two suicide bombers carried out separate attacks Tuesday August 25, 2015, that killed five people in Damaturu, a town in northeastern Nigeria. In one attack, a girl bomber died in an explosion that killed five people at the crowded entrance to the main bus station. In the second attack a young male suicide bomber killed only himself when his device exploded prematurely. 41 people were wounded in the bus station explosion. The bomber appeared to be about 14 years old.

Nigeria Friday Aguste 28, 2015:

A yet unknown number of people are feared dead in a deadly crash involving an aircraft belonging to the Nigerian Air Force on Saturday August 29, 2015. The aircraft took off at the Nigeria Air Force base in Kaduna and crashed into the nearby Ribadu cantonment shortly after take-off. All three passengers and four crew are feared dead. The aircraft was on a training flight and was heading to Abuja before it crashed. The cause of the crash remained unclear, but officials are suspecting engine failure. ---

On Saturday August 29, 2015, Nigeria’s military has uncovered a major Boko Haram bomb-making factory and arrested two leading members of the militant group. The operation resulted in the seizure of a vehicle and bomb materials, including gas cylinders and fertilizer.

The Nigerian air force says one of its aircraft has crashed into a residential house in Kaduna state killing all four crew and three passengers. The Dornier-228 aircraft had taken off from Kaduna Military Airfield Saturday morning August 29, 2015, bound for the country's capital, Abuja, when it crashed in a house in the Ribadu area.

On Sundat August 30, 2015, Nigeria's state security agency said it has arrested Boko Haram members in Abuja, the capital, and its largest city, Lagos. Agents arrested nine suspected Boko Haram members over the last two months in Lagos. Last week, they also announced the capture of a boy who is suspected of spying on the airport in Abuja, along with arrests in the southeastern city of Enugu and the northern cities of Kano and Gombe.

Twenty six people were killed in Nigeria' s northeastern Borno state by attackers on horseback believed to be rebels of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. Kolori and the neighboring village of Baana-imam were attacked late Tuesday September 1, 2015. The death toll was 26. Boko Haram's six-year-old uprising has caused the deaths of an estimated 20,000 people. More than 1,000 people have been killed since President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in March with a pledge to wipe out the militants. Nearly 2 million have been driven from their homes by the uprising. Some 75,000 refugees from Niger, Nigeria and Chad have been displaced from their homes in recent weeks due to Boko Haram attacks in the Lake Chad area.

The Nigerian Army has retaken the economically strategic town of Gomboru Ngala, Borno State, from the Boko Haram militants on Tuesday September 1, 2015.

On Monday September 7, 2015, we were told that at least 2.1m Nigerians have been displaced due to the deadly insurgence of terror group Boko Haram, which has killed thousands in northern Nigeria and neighbouring countries. The Islamic militants have killed more than 15,000 people since their insurgence became violent in 2009. Earlier this year, the estimated number of refugees was 1.3 million.

The Nigerian military has “wiped out” all known Boko Haram terror camps and cells in northeast Nigeria. The Islamist insurgents are now “so militarily defeated and weakened” that they could never hold territory in that part of the country again.

A Nigerian Spiritan priest (Congregation of the Holy Spirit), Fr. Gabriel Oyaka, was kidnapped on Monday 7 September in Kogi State. The priest was traveling in his car along the Okene-Auchi road, on his way from the federal capital, Abuja, to Onitsha, in Anambra State. His car was suddenly blocked by some armed bandits. The kidnappers have contacted the priest’s family, probably for ransom. In recent months alone, several priests have been kidnapped or killed in road ambushes. On 15 August, a Claretian priest (Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) Fr. Dennis Osuagwu was assassinated in Nekede. On 8 June, Fr. Emmanuel Akingbade, the pastor of St. Benedict of Ido-Elkit, in south-west Nigeria, was kidnapped, then released on 16 June. Earlier on 1 June, Fr. Goodwill Onyeka was killed along with his brother, in a robbery along the Owo-Oba-Akoko road, in the state of Ondo, in southern Nigeria. On 4 May, Fr. Innocent Umor was kidnapped, in the Diocese of Idah, in Kogi State, in central southern Nigeria. The priest was released two days later. ---

Nigeria Friday September 11, 2015:

 

A senior Nigerian journalist who was seized from her home last month has been released we were told on Saturday September 12, 2015. Donu Kogbara was kidnapped on August 30s.

The Nigerian Army on Sunday September 13, 2015, said scores of members of the Boko Haram insurgent group have surrendered their arms. The insurgents began surrendering when they realised that the ‘new strategies’ being deployed by soldiers (that includes sustained offensive operations, pre-emptive air strikes by the Nigerian Airforce and routes blocking by ground troops) was becoming successful.

At least four children have died after a primary school building collapsed near the central Nigerian city of Jos. Twenty-four pupils were injured in the incident at the Abu Naima Islamic School on Sunday September 13, 2015. It is unclear whether more students may be trapped under the rubble.

Nigeria’s army rescued at least a dozen kidnapped women and children held captive by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. They were freed as the army cleared Boko Haram camps on Monday September 14, 2015 in north-eastern Borno state. The army did not say where the women and children had been kidnapped from or their condition. Hundreds of hostages have been freed from Boko Haram captivity in 2015 but none of the 219 girls abducted in April 2014 from a school in Chibok has been among those rescued.

Cholera has killed 16 people in three camps in Nigeria housing over one million people who have fled the Boko Haram insurgency we were told on Thursday September 17, 2015. Almost 200 people have been admitted to MSF's 100-bed cholera treatment centre in Maiduguri, capital of northern Nigeria’s Borno State, since September 15. More than two million people have been uprooted in northern Nigeria since Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009 aimed at creating an Islamic state in the northeast of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.

A bomb has exploded at a refugee camp (the Malkohi Internally Displaced Persons camp) for people displaced by fighting in Nigeria, killing at least seven people (children were among the dead and 20 persons were injured). Among those at the camp were women and children who were rescued from Islamist group Boko Haram. The explosion happened at a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of the Adamawa state capital Yola. The explosion was caused by a device that was left by tents in the camp, which lies just outside the city in the hamlet of Malkohi.

On Thursday September 17, 2015, Nigeria's militaries have rescued 90 people (23 men, 33 women and 34 children), after dislodging Boko Haram Islamists from two villages (Dissa and Balazala, which lie in the vicinity of the town of Gwoza in Borno state in the country's northeast). More than 200 girls abducted from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok in April of last year are still being held by the Islamists in a kidnapping that shocked the world.

Nigeria Sunday September 20, 2015:

Negotiations between the Nigerian government and terror group Boko Haram are unlikely to result in the release of the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by the militants we were told Thursday September 24, 2015. Some 300 girls were abducted in the remote village of Chibok, in the Borno state, in April 2014. Shortly after, around 50 escaped while some 219 are still held captive, amid reports they have been sold as slaves or are being forced to carry out suicide bombing missions. In July, President Muhammadu Buhari said the government was ready to negotiate with the terrorists in order to curb violence and see that the girls are freed. He reiterated his will to engage in talks with the insurgents during an official visit in Paris, where he said his government had refused to release a Boko Haram bomb expert in exchange for the girls.

The Nigerian military has banned moving vehicles, bicycles, horses, donkeys and camels in northeastern Borno State during a Muslim holiday this week as a security measure to try to prevent Islamic extremist attacks. The ban follows a series of blasts on Sunday September 20, 2015, that killed more than 100 people in Maiduguri and Monguno in Borno State. The move was aimed at ensuring safety during the Eid al-Adha holiday on Thursday and Friday.

On Friday September 25, 2015, some 200 members of the Boko Haram Islamist militant group have given themselves up, in the biggest such surrender. The fighters are said to have handed themselves over in the town of Banki on the border with Cameroon.

On Friday September 25, 2015, we were told that Nigeria’s military successfully rescued 241 women and children from Boko Haram camps in Jangurori and Bulatori and arrested 43 militants, including a prominent leader. Bulama Modu was acting as “emir” of the Bulatori camp and was equipped with a horse, arms, ammunition, and bows and arrows some of which were buried by his fellow militants who seemed to abandon their posts during the raids. The women and children freed do not appear to be the 200 Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped last year, whose fate remains a mystery. Boko Haram continues its mission to spread Sharia law throughout its native Nigeria and in other countries across western and central Africa, like Cameroon, Niger, Benin and Chad.

At least 54 Nigerians are known to have died in Thursday September 24, 2015, stampede during the Hajj pilgrimage near Mecca. It was the deadliest incident to hit the Hajj in 25 years.

Gunmen thought to be Boko Haram fighters on Sunday September 27, 2015, killed at least nine people in northeast Nigeria, in a raid that also left 10 people injured. Suspected Boko Haram terrorists attacked Mailari village, in Konduga LGA. ---

Nigeria Thursday October 1, 2015:

A series of explosions on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital Abuja have killed at least 18 people. The first two struck Kuje township: one by a suicide bomber near a police station, the other a bomb at a market. Another bomb exploded at a bus stop in Nyanya. More than 40 people were injured in the blasts on Friday October 2, 2015, which security officials described as co-ordinated.

Nigeria's former oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke was arrested in London on Friday October 2, 2015. Alison-Madueke was minister from 2010 until May 2015 under former president Goodluck Jonathan, who was defeated by Muhammadu Buhari at the polls in March.

At least 74 of the country's citizens of Nigeria were killed in last month's stampede at the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia and another 64 were injured. Nigerians are mourning the dead and awaiting news of other missing relatives, 11 days after the tragedy. And the death toll may still rise as 244 Nigerians who went to the Hajj remain missing.

Suicide bombers killed at least 18 people on Wednesday October 7, 2015, in three dawn attacks including in a mosque in the northeastern Nigerian town of Damaturu. Separately, Boko Haram Islamic extremists attacked a rural military camp in northeastern Yobe state overnight but were repulsed by troops who killed at least 100 of the insurgents. Seven troops died in the fighting and nine were injured in the village of Goniri. Hours later when mosques are filled with the faithful performing early-morning prayers, two women suicide bombers struck in Damaturu, Yobe state’s commercial center.

Ten people have been quarantined after coming into contact with a patient with Ebola-like symptoms in the southern Nigerian city of Calabar, we were told Thursday October 8, 2015, a year after the country was declared free of the deadly disease. A patient came to the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital on Wednesday with symptoms consistent with the viral hemorrhagic fever. The patient had since died. ---

A Nigerian Air Force fighter jet on a bombing mission against Boko Haram crashed in a windstorm in the country's northeast, killing the pilot. The jet "returning to base from an interdicted mission crashed due to bad weather and not under enemy fire we were told Saturday October 10, 2015. The Chinese-built Chengdu F7 went down in a rural area of Adamawa State. The pilot parachuted from the plunging jet, only to ram into a tree, which killed him. There was a violent windstorm when the jet hit the ground with such force that its nose is buried.

Three blasts hit the city of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday October 13, 2015, killing a number of people. The huge explosions happened in the Ajilari Cross area of the city, which has been targeted by similar attacks twice in the last month, including on September 20 when at least 117 were killed.

Nigerian police have arrested two men believed to be behind coordinated bomb blasts that left at least 18 people dead and 41 injured in the federal capital of Abuja on 2 October. The police foiled another attempt to undertake further attacks in the FCT [Federal Capital Territory. The police found 12 home-made explosive devices (HEDs) and 28 pieces of electronic detonators hidden in several soft drink cans. The country's intelligence warned dozens of people linked to the Islamist outfit had been arrested in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, suggesting the insurgence could spread beyond the country's north.

Dozens of worshippers –at least 42- were killed after two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a mosque in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri. All the people in the mosque died. Not a single one escaped we were told on Thursday October 15, 2015.

Four women suicide bombers blew themselves up Thursday October 15, 2015, when challenged by soldiers as they tried to enter Maiduguri killing at least 18 people and themselves. The explosions happened at dawn, just hours after two bombs exploded near a mosque in Maiduguri, killing at least 30 people. 20 people were wounded in that earlier attack, some critically.

11 or 12 people have been killed in Adamawa state, north-eastern Nigeria, in twin suicide bombings. Two women detonated their explosives in Dar village on Saturday October 17, 2015. The two women carried out the blasts after hiding with other people who were fleeing a suspected Boko Haram attack in a nearby village. Unidentified gunmen shot the survivors of the two blasts. ---

At least 18 people have been killed in twin bomb blasts in a mosque in Maiduguri, capital of restive Borno state, northern Nigeria. The blasts -believed to have been carried out by one suicide bomber- occurred early on Friday October 23, 2015, as Muslims gathered to the mosque for the Morning Prayer.

A bombing at a new mosque in Yola, Nigeria, killed at least 27 people (and 96 injured) Friday October 23, 2015. Scores of others were wounded in the attack in the northeast Nigerian city.

Three people were killed and several injured in an attack by a female suicide bomber in northeastern Nigeria. The deaths, including that of the bomber, happened on Saturday October 24, 2015, morning in Maiduguri. A second female suicide bomber was captured before she could detonate the explosive. Two more suicide bombers set off devices in a village close to Maiduguri, killing one other person.

Four women suicide bombers blew themselves up in northeastern Nigeria Saturday October24, 2015, killing one other person and wounding 10, when civilian guards prevented them from entering the city of Maiduguri. The women blew themselves up when they were stopped for a body search by self-defense fighters on the outskirts of the city. Suicide bombers killed 42 people Friday in mosques in Maiduguri and Yola. Nigeria's 6-year-old uprising has killed about 20,000 people and driven 2.3 million from their homes.

Nigerian troops have rescued 338 captives, almost all women and children, from Boko Haram camps in a forest in the north-east of the country. Nigerian troops have rescued hundreds of Boko Haram captives this year, but none of the 219 girls kidnapped –more than 50 had earlier escaped– from a school in Chibok.

On Wednesday October 28, 2015, we were told that 30 extremists were killed the previous day in raids on two camps on the fringes of the insurgents’ stronghold in Sambisa Forest. Separately, troops ambushed and killed four suspects on a bombing mission in the north-eastern Adamawa state. Hundreds of people have died in suicide bombing attacks, mainly targeting mosques and markets, in recent months. ---

On Monday November 2, 2015, Nigerian government troops have clashed with terrorists from Boko Haram Takfiri group in northeastern part of the African country, killing four militants. They managed to drive Boko Haram extremists out of an abandoned primary school in the area in a shootout a day earlier. The terrorists had been using the school as a transit camp. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has so far attacked many schools in northeastern Borno state. The schools have closed, been burned to the ground or abandoned.

At least seven people were killed and 15 injured Sunday November 8, 2015, in clashes between supporters of rival political parties in Nigeria's eastern Taraba state after a court nullified the election win of the state governor. The fight was between supporters of PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and APC (All Progressives Congress) in Wukari. Several homes and businesses were burnt in the violence which was brought under control by anti-riot policemen.

Nigerian troops killed four suspected Boko Haram suspects and arrested one and set free 61 people, mainly women and children, held by the jihadist group in the flashpoint northeastern Borno state we were told Thursday November 12, 2015. The Nigerian army had last October 28 freed more than 330 people, mostly women and children, from Boko Haram's Sambisa forest stronghold. Of those 192 were children while 138 were women.

Heavy casualties are feared after a bomb blast ripped through packed crowds in Yola on Tuesday November 17, 2015, north-east Nigeria, just days after the president, Muhammadu Buhari, visited declaring that terrorist organisation Boko Haram was close to defeat. The explosion happened in the midst of a large crowd because the area houses a livestock market, an open-air eatery and a mosque. Initial reports suggested that at least 32 people were killed and 80 injured. The blast in the Jambutu area happened shortly after evening prayers as people left the mosque to eat.

Two female suicide bombers have killed 15 people in a market in northern Nigeria's main city, Kano, on Wednesday November 18, 2015. One of the bombs went off inside the Farm Centre mobile phone market, and the other at the entrance. One of the bombers was aged just 11 and the other 18.

Armed robbers dressed in military uniforms Friday November 20, 2015, raided six banks at the Agbara Industrial Estate in Lagos. Four people died in the operation including two policemen, a pregnant woman and a commercial motorcyclist, both of whom were hit by stray bullets. Some commercial motorcyclists and tricycle operators were among those injured as the robbers shot indiscriminately at people while speeding off. They arrived the Agbara waterside in two speedboats and escaped through the same route. Before escaping, they set two of their vehicles, an SUV and a bus, ablaze. The robbers, among whom were some young women, used dynamites to break bank vaults and move out cash. Some of them held bank staff at gun point while others ransacked drawers and safes in the offices. The robbers took over the two entry and exit routes into the area where the banks are located. A police Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) stationed in the area was riddled with bullets.

Nigeria Sunday November 22, 2015:

At least eight people have been killed in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, in a suicide bombing blamed on terror group Boko Haram. The victims were people who had been displaced from the town of Dikwa due to the terrorists' insurgency. Dikwa was previously controlled by Boko Haram, but was recaptured by the military in July. However, lack of food and basic services made it difficult for the residents to return home. The displaced people were undergoing security checks when the bomb detonated. The latest attack came hours after at least five people were killed and dozens injured when four suicide bombers detonated their explosives in Nigue, a suburb in northern Cameroon. ---

A male suicide bomber hit a procession of Shi'ite Muslims in Nigeria's Kanostate as they walked to the city of Zaria to pay homage to their founder in the country. 21 people had been killed and more wounded. The blast went off near the village of Dakozoye outside the town of Garum Mallam, south of Nigeria's second city Kano.

Armed attackers abducted five Polish seamen from a cargo ship in Nigerian waters we were told Friday November 27, 2015. The five, including the captain and three officers, were abducted Thursday night from the ship Szafir. A further 11 crew members who barricaded themselves inside the ship were safe and in contact by phone. The ship was attacked by armed pirates from two boats, some 35 nautical miles off the Nigerian coast.

Two female suicide bombers detonated their explosives in a town in north Cameroon, killing at least five people and injuring 12 others we were told Saturday November 28, 2015. Two teenagers targeted a family and local shop in the town of Dabanga near Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria. He said the suicide bombers were Nigerians who came to Cameroon as refugees. Cameroon has expelled thousands of refugees.

Boko Haram fighters killed eight people at the weekend in northeast Nigeria and southeastern Niger, in deadly raids that saw houses burnt and villagers kidnapped. The attacks in Bam-Buratai, in Nigeria's Borno state, and in the Diffa region of Niger, happened on Saturday November 28, 2015, while there was another raid in Gulak, in Nigeria's Adamawa on Sunday.

Four people were killed in two separate suicide bombings in the northeastern Nigeria state of Borno. Seven people were also injured in the attacks on the villages of Kimba and Sabon Gari late on Friday December 4, 2015.

The Nigerian army has captured a Boko Haram Islamist militant on its top 100 suspect list,  Boko Haram’s chief cameraman, who is number 58 on the military’s most wanted list.

Nigeria's secret police on Saturday December 5, 2015, arrested a dozen suspects linked to the discovery of "sleeper cells" operated by Boko Haram Islamists in and around the capital Abuja. Those arrested had travelled from the restive northeast of the country to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and were planning on staging attacks in Abuja during the year-end festivities. The suspects hid in plain sight, often working in legal jobs while carrying out surveillance to "map out soft targets for attacks.

Niger has agreed to transfer hundreds of prisoners from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram back to their home country of Nigeria to reduce pressure on its crammed prisons we were told on Tuesday December 8, 2015. Boko Haram militants mostly operate in northeastern Nigeria but have also stepped up their insurgency within Niger's southern region of Diffa in recent months, carrying out dozens of attacks. Niger has declared a state of emergency there in an effort to improve security and has made hundreds of arrests. Nigeria sent a working group to Niger) last week and the two sides have established an initial list of 500 detainees who will soon be transferred to Nigeria.

Five Polish seamen abducted by pirates from a cargo ship off Nigeria's coast in late November have been freed and are returning home soon we were told Tuesday December 8, 2015. ---

Fourteen people were killed, some of them decapitated, in a Boko Haram raid on a village in northeast Nigeria we were told Friday December 11, 2015. The attack happened on Thursday in the village of Kamuya in Borno State. The Islamist gunmen arrived on foot and by bicycle. The number of civilian casualties since President Muhammadu Buhari took office on May 29 is more than 1,500.  Since 2009, at least 17,000 have been killed.

On Saturday December 12, 2015, Nigerian military forces have killed several Shia Muslims who had gathered to attend a religious ceremony north of the country. The clashes erupted between the Nigerian army and Shia Muslims in the city of Zaria, Kaduna State. Soldiers opened fire on the people in Hussainiyyah Baqeeyatullah, a religious center belonging to the Islamic Movement of Nigeria. The Shias had reportedly stopped the convoy of the Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai as the leader of the Shia movement in Nigeria, Ayatollah Ibrahim Zakzaky, was planning a speech in the religious center.

Soldiers besieging the home of the leader of a Shiite movement accused of trying to assassinate Nigeria's army chief have shot and killed at least 12 people we were told Sunday December 13, 2015. About 30 people have been wounded in the ongoing attack that began late Saturday in the city of Zaria in northern Nigeria and continued into early Sunday. The Shiites on Saturday afternoon attacked the convoy of Gen. Tukur Buratai.

Nigeria Tuesday December 15, 2015:

 

Police opened fire Tuesday December 15, 2015, on unarmed Shiite Muslim protesters in the northern city of Kaduna, leaving three dead after activists accused soldiers of having killed hundreds of Shiites in "a massacre" in a nearby town in recent days. 10 people were also wounded when police shot "peaceful protesters." They were condemning the mass killings over the weekend and early Monday in the ancient Muslim university town of Zaria, and demanding the military release their leader, Ibraheem Zakzaky.

Brutal attacks on three villages by Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast of Nigeria have left 30 dead and 20 others wounded. Most of the victims were slaughtered and most of the wounded had suffered) machete cuts in Saturday December 12, 2015's attacks in the villages of Warwara, Mangari and Bura-Shika in Borno state. The Islamists invaded the villages, hacking and slaughtering their victims before setting the villages on fire. Warwara, where 20 people were killed, was the worst affected. The attackers killed six people in Bura-Shika and another four in Mangari. The latest deaths take the number of people killed in Nigeria since President Muhammadu Buhari took office in May to more than 1,530.

The Nigerian Army on Wednesday December 16, 2015, killed four would-be suicide bombers near a checkpoint on the outskirt of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. One of the four female bombers died when she detonated her explosive vest, while the three others were gunned down by the troops. One civilian lost his life and 4 other persons sustained various degrees of injuries. The Nigeria Police Explosive Ordinance Device team safely detonated the unexploded Improvised Explosive Device carried by the other suicide bombers. ---

Three child suicide bombers set off explosions that killed six others and injured at least 24 people. We were told Monday December 21, 2015, that the three were between the ages of 10 and 15 years old. They attacked a security checkpoint on Sunday in Benisheikh, a town in Nigeria's northeast Borno State. On Sunday December 20, 2015, the army killed at least 12 Boko Haram fighters in an operation in the same state. Two camps were raided in the operation.

The Nigerian army completely demolished a religious center belonging to the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) following the recent massacre of Shia Muslims in the West African country. The army bulldozed Hussainiyyah Baqeeyatullah in the northern city of Zaria in Kaduna State on Sunday December 20, 2015. This comes nearly a week after Nigerian soldiers opened fire on the people attending a religious ceremony at the site. More than a dozen people were killed during the December 12 raid. The military accused the Shias of stopping the convoy of Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai and attempting to assassinate him. The IMN and its leader Ibrahim al-Zakzaky strongly rejected the assassination accusation.

Cameroonian troops have killed at least 70 residents while chasing Islamic insurgents in the Gwoza area of Borno state in northeastern Nigeria. Troops entered Kirawa-Jimni village on Sunday December 20, 2015, asked where were Boko Haram insurgents and started shooting.

Nigerian soldiers fired on unarmed Islamic Shiite children with no provocation in raids that killed hundreds of the minority group in the West African nation we were told Wednesday Decembre 23, 2015. Nobody believe the Nigerian military's version that raids over three days on three Shiite locations in northern Zaria town followed an attempted assassination of the army chief after blocking the convoy of Gen. Tukur Buratai.

Tens of people were killed in an explosion at a gas plant in southern Nigeria we were told Friday December 25, 2015, with one journalist putting the death toll at 100. The blast occurred on Thursday when a truck was discharging butane gas at the facility in Nnewi town in Anambra state as a crowd of customers refilled gas bottles on Christmas Eve.

Christmas was "cancelled" in the southeastern Nigerian town of Nnewi where a huge explosion at an industrial gas plant killed nine people and left three critically injured. The number of victims was smaller than thought at first but it was still a disaster.

At least 14 people were killed and several others injured by Boko Haram gunmen in a Christmas Day attack on a village in northeastern Nigeria we were told Saturday December 26, 2015. Attacking astride bicycles, the jihadists invaded Kimba village in flashpoint Borno state on Friday, opening fire on residents and torching their homes. The gunmen also burnt the whole village. Not a single house was spared in the arson. Hundreds of Kimba residents fled to Biu nearby, where they were put up in a refugee camp already brimming with people running from Boko Haram.

Nigeria Sunday December 27, 2015:

At least 17 people were killed in twin suicide attacks Monday December 28, 2015, at a motor park in Nigeria’s northeastern town of Madagali; 41 others were injured and taken to hospital.  The attacks were carried out by “two female suicide bombers”, who detonated explosives at the bus station. Many of the victims were returning to Yola to resume work after the Maulid and Christmas holiday.

On Wednesday January 6, 2016 an Islamic court has sentenced a Nigerian cleric to death by hanging for insulting the Prophet Muhammad in the northern city of Kano. Abdulazeez Dauda, popularly known as Abdul Inyass, was convicted after a trial held in secret to avoid protests. Five of his followers were also sentenced to death last year. These are the first death sentences for blasphemy handed down by a Nigerian Sharia court; those delivered for other offences have not been carried out.

Forty people have died in Nigeria in a suspected outbreak of Lassa fever in 10 states across the country we were told Friday January 8, 2016. The total number (of suspected cases) reported is 86 and 40 deaths (mortality rate of 43.2 percent). Lassa fever is an acute hemorrhagic illness which belongs to the arenarvirus family of viruses, which also includes the Ebola-like Marburg virus. People with Lassa fever do not display symptoms in 80 percent of cases but it can cause serious symptoms and death in the remainder. The virus, which is endemic in rodents in West Africa, is transmitted to humans by contact with food or household items contaminated with the animals' faeces and urine.

Militants from opposing political parties killed two soldiers and four police officers in shootouts after the governor of Nigeria's oil-rich Bayelsa state was declared the winner of elections there we were told Monday January 11, 2016. Militants hours later were involved in a shootout and several people killed, including two soldiers and four police officers. In a separate development, the army announced that an independent board of inquiry has recommended action be taken against nearly 100 officers and soldiers accused of unprofessional and partisan conduct during the 2015 general and presidential elections.

Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a new investigation into the kidnapping of 219 schoolgirls by Islamist group Boko Haram in April 2014 from the town of Chibok we were told on Thursday January 14, 2016. A panel would be announced soon by the National Security Advisor. The decision comes after parents of the girls and the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement marched to the presidential villa to demand a meeting with Buhari earlier on Thursday.

Cameroonian troops pursuing Boko Haram fired rocket-propelled grenades indiscriminately that killed a family of four, then shot and killed two other civilians we were told Tuesday January 19, 2016. Several reports accuse Cameroon’ s militaries of killing scores of Nigerian civilians and razing villages in an apparent attempt to create a no-go zone along the border. Cameroon's government has denied previous similar charges, which come amid rising tensions between Nigeria and its neighbors over the Islamic uprising that has spilled over Nigeria's borders.

At least 29 people, including a police chief, were killed in Sunday January 24, 2016, early morning attacks on four villages in northern Nigeria. The attack by suspected herdsmen from the Fulani ethnic group caught the police in an ambush. The herdsmen were acting in revenge as there is an ongoing conflict between herdsmen and farmers over land and grazing rights.

Four Sun International employees were being detained without charge in Nigeria we were told on Monday January 25, 2016. The employees‚ three of whom are South African expatriates‚ had been detained by the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, without being formally charged. Sun International is doing all it can to have them released. The company has been given access to provide the detainees with blankets‚ food‚ water and toiletries.

Sun International said on Tuesday January 26, 2016, that it had secured the release of four employees late last night. The staff members had been detained without charge in Nigeria by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) since Thursday 21 January. Further to the release of the employees‚ the EFCC still wishes to investigate the nature of Sun International’s original investment into the Tourist Company of Nigeria (TCN) as well as TCN’s trading records and has requested that TCN provide them with information and documentation. Sun International has no difficulty with this request and intends to work with TCN to collate and provide to the required information to the EFCC. Sun International expressed gratitude to various South African government authorities that assisted in obtaining the release of the detainees‚ in particular the SA High Commission in Nigeria. ---

On Wednesday January 27, 2016, five female suicide bombers targeted the Chibok home town of Nigeria's kidnapped schoolgirls, killing nine civilians and wounding 32. Soldiers are searching the north-eastern town for two other women seen with the bombers and also suspected to be strapped with explosives. One of three wounded soldiers died in hospital later. The blasts with shrapnel zapping through the air began when soldiers stopped a young woman wearing a hijab for a routine search at the entrance to an open-air, roadside vegetable market in the north east Nigerian town. She blew herself up. Then three women already inside the market exploded in quick succession. Another blast occurred at a military checkpoint at the entrance to Chibok. Residents blamed Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group that kidnapped nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls in April 2014. Dozens escaped but 219 remain missing. Chibok is a Christian enclave in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.

Later on we were told that at least 16 people have died after multiple suicide bombings in Chibok, the Nigerian town from which Boko Haram kidnapped scores of schoolgirls almost two years ago. Six male and female suicide bombers entered the town on Wednesday January 27, 2016, when people gather for the weekly vegetable market. The first blast came when a man blew himself up at a military checkpoint. A soldier was injured and later died. A woman about to be searched blew herself up. Other explosions followed set off by veiled women who were already in the market. There were a total of three explosions. Other witnesses said there were five.

A child suicide bomber blew himself up in a market in northeast Nigeria Friday January 29 2016, killing at least 10 people. A huge blast erupted at around midday in the crowded market in Gombi in Adamawa state, one of the worst-hit in the seven-year Boko Haram insurgency. The blast came after three suicide bombers killed at least 14 people in town of Chibok on Wednesday, where Islamist gunmen kidnapped more than 200 girls in April 2014.

A crude oil pipeline in Nigeria's southern state of Bayelsa operated by the local subsidiary of Italy's Eni was attacked on Thursday night January 28, 2016. The attackers hit a crude pipeline near Brass, a coastal city and site of a crude export terminal. Eni operates in Nigeria through its subsidiary Nigerian Agip Oil Company. It is not yet known if exports would be affected. The Italian parent company ENI said 16,000 barrels of oil per day were lost and the company Monday February 2, 2016, began working to resume production.

Scores of people, including children, have been killed in a Nigerian town by Boko Haram fighters who shot at villagers and set fire to their homes. The attack took place on Saturday January 31, 2016, in the village of Dalori, which lies about 12km from the northern city of Maiduguri. Some 86 people died after Boko Haram fighters arrived in the village, initially shooting at locals from their cars before setting fire to huts with people inside. The militants also tried to storm a nearby refugee camp, housing 25,000 people. The assailants arrived in two cars and on motorcycles. Three female suicide bombers who had initially tried to mingle with the villagers were intercepted, then blew themselves up.

Nigerian militants have hijacked a merchant ship and threatened to blow it up with its foreign crew if authorities do not release a detained leader agitating for a breakaway state of Biafra. The vessel –which has not been identified– was hijacked on Friday January 29, 2016, and the navy is pursuing it. The hijackers have given the government 31 days to free Nnamdi Kanu, the director of the banned Radio Biafra, who was detained by secret police on 17 October and accused of terrorism.

A Nigerian Air Force Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has destroyed a logistics base used by members of the Boko Haram terrorist group we were told Wednesday February 3, 2016. The UAV was on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission when it came across the gathering of Boko Haram insurgents at Garin Moloma, about one kilometre north of the Sambisa Forest.

Five foreigners were taken hostage after an attack on their ship, a chemical tanker, offshore Nigeria we were told on Thursday February 4, 2016. The chemical tanker, Leon Dias, was attacked on January 29 offshore in the oil south. The attackers left the boat two days later, taking with them two Filipinos, two Russians and one Georgian. A former separatist militant known as the “General Ben” claimed responsibility for the kidnapping calling for the release of Biafran independence leader Nnamdi Kanu, detained since October awaiting trial for “treason. But according to experts, this kind of attack off the coast, very common in the oil south, are not related to the separatist movement which is claiming independence of Biafra. Kidnappings of foreign workers and the hijacking of ships are rather the action of militants in the Niger Delta, calling for a better distribution of oil revenues. A ransom is being negotiated, and it can take two to four weeks.

More than 100 people have been killed by Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria, as West Africa battles to contain a flare-up of the virus. Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) statistics released on Saturday February 6, 2016, show that reported cases of the acute hemorrhagic disease -both confirmed and suspected- stood at 175 with a total of 101 deaths since August. As at today, 19 (including Abuja) states are currently following up contacts, or have suspected cases with laboratory results pending or laboratory confirmed cases. Deaths from the virus were recorded in the nation's political capital, Abuja, Lagos, and 14 other states. ---

On Sunday February 7, 2016, Fulani herdsmen are reported to have attacked farming communities in Benue state, killing 10 and displacing about 300 villagers.

Two female suicide bombers have blown themselves up in a refugee camp in north-east Nigeria, killing at least 56 people. Further 78 people were being treated for wounds following the twin explosions on Tuesday morning February 9, 2016. The camp houses about 50,000 people who have been driven from their homes by the Boko Haram Islamist uprising. The extremists are blamed for the bombings at Dikwa, 55 miles north-east of Maiduguri, the biggest city in the region and birthplace of Boko Haram. The six-year insurgency has killed 20,000 people, made 2.5 million homeless and spread across Nigeria’s borders. Also in neighbouring Cameroon two suicide bombers believed to have come from Nigeria on Wednesday killed 10 people and injured 40 in a border village.

Strapped with a booby-trapped vest and sent by the extremist Boko Haram group to kill as many people as possible, the young teenage girl tore off the explosives and fled as soon as she was out of sight of her handlers. Her two companions, however, completed their grisly mission and walked into a crowd of hundreds at Dikwa refugee camp in northeast Nigeria and blew themselves up, killing 58 people. Later found by local self-defense forces, the girl's tearful account is one of the first indications that at least some of the child bombers used by Boko Haram are aware that they are about to die and kill others. She said she was scared because she knew she would kill people. But she was also frightened of going against the instructions of the men who brought her to the camp.

At least 30 people have been killed in fresh Boko Haram raids on two villages in northeast Nigeria we were told Saturday February 13, 2016. Gun and knife-toting assailants on bikes and in vans stormed the remote villages of Yakshari and Kachifa on Friday and Saturday. The attackers killed 30 people); they also looted and stole cattle. The village of Yakshari was attacked on Saturday, with the assailants slaughtering 22 residents "by slitting their throats before emptying food stores and taking away all the cattle. Late Friday evening, meanwhile, Boko Haram Islamists also raided nearby Kachifa village, killing eight people.

In a joint operation, Nigerian and Cameroonian forces rescued 112 Boko Haram captives in Nigeria's northerneastern Borno state on Monday February 15, 2016, while Cameroonian troops killed 162 Boko Haram militants in the northeastern town of Goshi and have retaken the town from the group. Captives who were rescued by the troops include 36 women and 68 children. Operation was a result of an ongoing collaboration between Nigeria and its neighbours to combat Boko Haram. Two members of Cameroon Army were killed during the operation. One of the Cameroonian soldiers died from an injury that he sustained when his unit's vehicle ran into an explosive buried along the Pulka-Ngoshe road in the region.

Cameroon mounted a major assault against a key Boko Haram base in Nigeria last week, inflicting heavy losses on the Islamist group and seizing arms and prisoners we were told Tuesday February 16, 2016. The Cameroonian army offensive took place from February 11 to February 14, 2016, in Ngoshe in Nigeria, some 15 kilometres from the northern town of Ashigashia on the border between the two countries. 162 Boko Haram terrorists were neutralised, or killed, and two Cameroonian soldiers also died.

On Friday February 19, 2016, we were told that troops rescued 195 persons captured by the Boko Haram insurgents and recovered 630 different domestic animals, while more enclaves of the insurgents had been cleared in the North-East. They were freed by a clearance patrol on suspected Boko Haram terrorist locations at Kwaptara, Mijigete, Garin Boka, Mosole, Ngubdori, Ma'asa, Dukje and Gulumba in Dikwa and Bama local councils of Borno State. Several insurgents were killed, while several items were also recovered, including "2 logistic trucks, 180 motorcycles, 750 bicycles and various perishable and non-perishable items such as a 100 KVA Mikano generator and grinding machine. ---

Immigration officials have arrested 17 Nigerians attempting to cross the border into Niger on their way to Libya with no valid papers we were told Tuesday February 23, 2016. The17 were intercepted in two batches at a border crossing with Niger. They were to cross border en route to Agadez in Niger Republic and then to Libya but their final destination was Europe through the dangerous voyage across the (Mediterranean) sea. Human trafficking is a major organised crime issue in Nigeria, where victims, most of them young women and girls, are smuggled into Niger then Libya before a final destination in Europe. Most of the victims are promised lucrative jobs but are instead forced into prostitution once in Europe. Such victims are often made to undergo voodoo rituals forcing them to vow never to disclose their situation to the authorities. The victims -10 women and seven men aged between 18 and 40- were apprehended on February 14 and 21. Only one of them was in possession of travel documents while the others had no travel documents nor any means of livelihood.

Bombs retrieved from Boko Haram extremists exploded accidentally Thursday February 25, 2016, at police headquarters in Nigeria's northeastern city of Yola, killing four people and driving shattered glass into officers and school children. The police station is in a commercial area surrounded by a market, the main prison, a post office, a TV station and two primary schools. The powerful blast shattered windows for blocks and destroyed the office of the Nigerian Police Anti-Bomb Squad along with nearby buildings in the police complex. Rescue officials recovered four bodies and ferried at least 20 wounded children and people to the hospital.

Nigeria's troops have a foiled a planned Boko Haram attack on a camp of displaced people in the northeastern town of Dikwa. The terrorists aimed at causing havoc at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp located at Dikwa we were told Wednesday February 24, 2016. Security forces decisively dealt with the terrorists, killing 26 of the Islamist fighters and seizing weapons and ammunition. One soldier and a local vigilante assisting the military in the fight against Boko Haram were killed. Three soldiers and four IDPs were injured in the encounter; anti-aircraft guns, assault rifles and explosives were among the weaponry recovered.

Cameroon's army killed 92 members of Islamist militant group Boko Haram and freed 850 villagers in a joint operation with Nigerian forces we were told on Friday February 26, 2016. The operation in the Nigerian village of Kumshe, close to the border with Cameroon, was conducted under the auspices of a multinational force fighting Boko Haram. Two Cameroonian soldiers were killed by an accidental mine explosion. Five other soldiers were wounded. The army captured weapons and ammunition and found a centre for production of homemade mines. ---

13 people died, while 10 others survived food poisoning caused by clostridium perfringes in Abuja. The disease broke out on Friday February 26, 2016, in Saburi community, Gwagwa ward of Abuja Municipal Area Council. Clostridium perfringes is a bacterium which occurs in the soil and contaminates food and the intestinal track of human beings.

On Sunday February 28, 2016, we were told that the Nigerian government has removed nearly 24,000 workers from its payroll after an audit revealed they did not exist. The move has enabled a monthly saving of around $11,5m. Corruption and mismanagement have long been a challenge to Nigeria's growth, and the government has promised to cut costs to face an economic slowdown.

Nigeria has shut down four key cattle markets in the northeast, where the sales of stolen animals are believed to be helping finance Boko Haram’s brutal Islamic insurgency. The governor of Borno state, the birthplace of Boko Haram, said Friday March 4, 2016, the militants are using “unscrupulous middlemen” to trade stolen cattle at the markets. All trading activities at the Gamboru cattle market, Dusuman, Shuwari and Ngom are suspended until further notice. Most of the cattle being traded at the markets were the direct proceeds of cattle rustling perpetrated by Boko Haram insurgents, which were sold at prohibitive costs to unsuspecting customers through some unscrupulous middlemen.

Three secondary school students who were kidnapped from their school in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, have been found on Sunday March 6, 2016. The three girls were seized from a dormitory last Monday at the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary School in the eastern suburb of Ikorodu.

Eighteen people were killed in a single accident in a week-end of deadly crashes in northern Nigeria that also saw a junior minister and his family killed we were told on Monday March 7, 2016. A commuter bus went up in flames after a head-on collision with a truck late on Sunday at Buzaye village near the city of Bauchi. All the 17 passengers and the driver were burnt to death in the fire. The bus was returning from Nigeria’s capital Abuja while the truck was heading towards the central city of Jos. Hours earlier Nigeria’s junior labour minister James Ocholi died in a crash with his wife and son while returning to Abuja. Ocholi’s car somersaulted several times after a rear tyre burst.

At least 34 people were killed when a five-storey building still under construction collapsed in Nigeria's megacity and commercial capital Lagos we were told on Wednesday March 9, 2016. The house collapsed on Tuesday after the owners had added floors despite lacking a permit from authorities. Thirteen people were rescued.

Nigeria's governing party said Thursday March 10, 2016, that 32 of its members have been shot, clubbed and beheaded in escalating violence as oil-rich Rivers state prepares for a rerun of legislative elections previously annulled amid fraud and killings. Rivers state is a stronghold of the opposition Democrats. The party denies responsibility and blames the spate of killings over two weeks on "satanic cult clashes”. It accused the governing party of "reckless and false allegations" to destabilize the opposition administration. ---

A gas explosion erupted at a Central Bank of Nigeria office in southern Nigeria Friday afternoon March 11, 2016, with reports of several wounded and others feared dead. The building in Calabar, the capital of Cross River state, was under reconstruction at the time of the blast, and several workers suffered severe burns from the flames. Firefighters extinguished the blaze and rescued people trapped inside the building. The source of the explosion was not known.

Two years after at least 640 recaptured detainees were slaughtered by soldiers of the Nigerian Army, the authorities have failed to conduct an effective, impartial and independent investigation into the killings. The detainees -men and boys, many arbitrarily arrested in mass screening operations- were killed after they fled the barracks in Maiduguri, Borno state on 14 March 2014 following a Boko Haram attack. The majority were shot. The others had their throats cut. To mark the anniversary of this massacre, Amnesty International campaigners will be gathering outside Nigerian embassies around the world to call for independent investigations and prosecutions. It is shocking that two years after these horrific killings there has been no justice for the victims and their relatives. The lack of an independent investigation has meant that no one has been held to account for the killings, strengthening an already pervasive culture of impunity within the military.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to prosecute soldiers who killed hundreds of detainees, despite promises to end impunity and military abuses we were told Monday March 14, 2016. Buhari should "take urgent action," starting with the soldiers who slaughtered 640 suspects on March 14, 2014, after a Boko Haram attack on the Giwa Barracks in northeastern Maiduguri city. Despite repeated promises by President Buhari and his government no concrete steps have been taken to begin independent investigations. In the two years since the Giwa killings, the pattern of unjustified use of lethal force by the military has continued with no one held accountable, while suspects continue to be held in military detention without charge or access to lawyers or families.

Children as young as eight are being paid teaching salaries by the state as part of identity fraud in the north-eastern Nigerian state of Bauchi. The scam, which involves drawing the salaries of non-existent civil servants, is widespread we wer told Tuesday March 15, 2016. But the government has recently been cracking down, removing thousands of "ghost workers" from its payroll. Nigeria is Africa's biggest economy.

Three civilian fighters on their way to combat Boko Haram militants in northeast Nigeria have been killed when their vehicle hit a landmine we were told on Tuesday March 15, 2016; seven more fighters on board the vehicle were injured. The vigilantes were approaching Huyum, which was under Boko Haram attack, when the front tire of their vehicle hit a bomb planted by the attackers. Boko Haram militants had laid mine traps for soldiers coming from Askira or vigilantes from nearby hamlets.

The death toll in a suicide attack by female bombers at a mosque in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri has risen to 25 we were told Thursday March 17, 2016. Two suicide bombers also died. The bombing, carried out by two women disguised as men, hit the Molai district of Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram which has been repeatedly targeted by the militant group in the past.

Cameroonian soldiers killed 20 Boko Haram fighters on Wednesday March 16, 2016, during a raid in northern Nigeria carried out by a multinational force tasked with stamping out the Islamist militants. The Islamist fighters were killed in the Nigerian town of Djibrila, which is about 10 km from the Cameroon border. 12 hostages were freed and munitions and armoured vehicles were seized during the operation. Boko Hara attacks have spilled over Nigeria's border into neighbouring countries including Cameroon, which has been the target of a stream of suicide bombings in recent months.

Extremist Muslim herdsmen have slaughtered close to 500 Christian farmers in central Nigeria in a series of ongoing attacks over the last month. The attackers are still hiding out in the villages, making it too dangerous for survivors to return and bury the dead. The slaughter has also left 7,000 Christian villagers displaced. Entire villages were burned down completely by Fulani herdsmen. Unidentified corpses of these Christians were discovered, properties were looted by these Fulani invaders. People were massacred and houses burned down by the Fulani herdsmen. Leaders of the herdsmen said that the killings were in retaliation for the slaughter of 10,000 cows by the Christian farmers, a claim vehemently denied. ---

Lassa fever has claimed a total of 80 lives in its latest outbreak in Nigeria. A total of 137 confirmed cases have so far been recorded since the disease broke out last November we were told on Wednesday March 23, 2016. The latest outbreak became worse in February but efforts have been intensified to tackle the threat and spread of Lassa fever and other hemorrhagic fevers in the country.

Nigeria Thursday March 24, 2016:

Ob Friday March 25, 2016, one of two girls arrested in northern Cameroon carrying explosives claimed to be one of the missing Chibok schoolgirls. The Nigerian government is sending parents from the Chibok community of northeast Nigeria to neighbouring Cameroon to verify whether a suspected female suicide bomber is one of the schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram nearly two years ago. The abduction of about 270 school girls by Islamic militants from a school in Chibok on April 14, 2014, sparked international outrage and a campaign “bringbackourgirls”. While about 50 of the girls managed to escape, 219 of these girls remain missing. The girls were arrested after being stopped by local self-defence forces in Limani near the border with Nigeria that has been the target of frequent suicide bombings in recent months. ---

Three people were killed and several wounded when an oil pipeline belonging to Italy's ENI exploded during repair works in Nigeria's southern Delta region we were told on Tuesday March 29, 2016. The explosion happened in the Olugboboro community in Bayelsa state on Sunday but bodies were only recovered on Monday after the fire was brought under control. Up to seven had been wounded.

Over the weekend a fire broke out in  Kano’s Sabon Gari market. It eventually destroyed 3,800 shops obliterating at least 2 trillion naira (approximately $10 billion dollars) worth of goods, and affected at least 18,000 traders. There was a previous fire in the market only five months ago.

Four crewmembers of an unnamed tanker were kidnapped on March 5 have been released March 27, 2016. They were kidnapped by a team of ten armed pirates, who approached the vessel off the coast of Nigeria near Port Harcourt in a black speedboat and boarded with hook and ladder. Non-essential crew retreated to the vessel's citadel but the pirates kidnapped four. The remaining crew sailed the tanker back to a safe port. Among other incidents, five crewmembers of the product tanker Sampatiki were kidnapped on March 26; two crewmembers of the Bourbon Offshore OSV Bourbon Liberty 251, a Russian national and one Nigerian national, were kidnapped off Nigeria in late February; they were later released on unspecified terms. Two crewmembers of the product tanker Maximus were kidnapped during the same week as the Liberty 251 incident.

A suspected suicide bomber intercepted in northern Cameroon last week before she could blow herself up is not one of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in the Nigerian town of Chibok in 2014, we were told on Wednesday March 30, 2016.

The leader of Nigeria's Ansaru jihadist group, a Boko Haram splinter group ideologically aligned to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, has been arrested we were told Sunday April 3, 2016. Khalid al-Barnawi is one of three Nigerians listed by Washington in 2012 as "specially designated global terrorists". The US Department of State in June 2012 named Barnawi alongside Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and Ansaru founder Abubakar Adam Kambar as terrorists.

The Nigeria Army Thursday March 31, 2016, killed nine terrorists in an operation and destroyed a bomb factory at a village in Borno State. Two empty artillery shells and other cartridges with IED and batteries were "ready to explode" at the time the bomb factory was destroyed. The troops found and destroyed improvised-explosive-device (IED) factory and cleared Boko Haram terrorists hide out in Wulwuta village.

Gunmen killed a Nigerian soldier and kidnapped a Lebanese construction worker on Tuesday April 5, 2016, in a shootout in the southern oil-producing Niger Delta. Pipeline attacks and violence have been on the rise in the swampland since authorities issued an arrest warrant in January for a former militant leader on corruption charges. The Lebanese, Ramzi Bau Hadir, aged 53 years, was kidnapped by armed bandits. ---

The Nigerian Army said on Thursday April 7, 2016, that 800 militants from the Islamist Boko Haram group who have surrendered and shown remorse will be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. They would be profiled, documented and offered training in new skills at several camps currently being set up, the army said. Until now militants who surrendered were held in jail awaiting trial.

Nearly 350 dead bodies were buried in a mass grave in northern Nigeria after clashes between the army and supporters of a Shiite cleric, an inquiry into the unrest was told. The testimony on Monday April 11, 2016, from Muhammad Namadi Musa, the director-general of the Kaduna State religious affairs office, lends weight to claims that at least 300 people were killed in the violence in December last year. This is afirst step in bringing all those suspected of criminal responsibility to trial.

Friends and family members of Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped two years ago say they have identified some of them in a new video obtained by CNN. The footage, apparently filmed in December, shows 15 girls in black robes identifying themselves. The girls were taken from a school in the town of Chibok by members of the Islamist group Boko Haram. Relatives of the girls marched in the capital, Abuja, on Thursday April 14, 2016, the second anniversary of their abduction.

Pirates attacked a cargo vessel off the coast of Nigeria and kidnapped two crew members we were told Thursday April 14, 2016, in the latest high-seas strike in the Gulf of Guinea. The CMA CGM Turquoise, managed by Dioryx Maritime in Greece, was stormed late on Monday as it travelled between Nigeria's commercial hub Lagos and Douala in Cameroon. It was the second attack in one day: early Monday pirates kidnapped six crew members of a Turkish cargo ship, the M/T Puli. The crew mustered in the citadel after the attackers had boarded the ship, but two crew members -the Filipino 2nd officer and the Egyptian electrician- did not make it there in time and were seized by the attackers.

Six people alleged to have attacked oil pipelines have been arrested. Moreover two illegal refineries in the oil-producing southern Delta region, have been destroyed by the army as well as a boat used to smuggle stolen crude oil we were told on Thursday April 14, 2016. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to crack down on groups attacking pipelines or other oil facilities in the Delta region, which produces much of Nigeria's oil. The six people, alleged to have been running a warehouse to store illegally refined products, were arrested in Rivers state.

The Nigerian army, backed by the country's air force, on Monday April 18, 2016, repelled an attack by Boko Haram fighters near the border with Niger in the jihadists' northeast heartland. The group allied to Islamic State had been fighting for at least seven years to carve out an Islamist caliphate in the region in a conflict which has displaced more than 2 million people and killed thousands. The militants struck as the troops were on their way to the border town of Damasak where they wanted to set up a permanent base. The army had two officers and 22 soldiers wounded in action.

Two female suicide bombers have killed at least eight people at a camp for people displaced by the jihadist Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria. The bombings happened Wednesday April 20, 2016, in the town of Banki on the edge of Borno state, near the border with Cameroon.

Nigeria has uncovered 17,000 more ghost workers on the civil service payroll we were told Thursday April 21, 2016, taking the number of fictitious employees to more than 37,000. The findings came as part of an audit conducted with the finance ministry and the accountant-general's office. As a result the federal government has lost close to one billion naira (4.39 million euros) to these ghost workers. The figure could go even higher as the audit could unravel more ghost workers buried deep in federal civil service payrolls. ---

On Tuesday April 26, 2016, a court in Nigeria has sentenced a former local MP to 154 years in jail for corruption and money laundering. Gabriel Daudu, from central Kogi State, was found guilty of 77 charges. But the judge ruled that the sentences would run concurrently, meaning Dauda will only spend two years in jail.

The Nigerian navy has destroyed a kidnappers’ camp in the oil-producing Niger River Delta as it tries to stem a sharp rise in piracy in the country’s waters. However the navy patrol team failed to capture the suspected hijacker gang during the operation in the Ekeremo area of southern Bayelsa State. The criminals “escaped with degrees of gunshot wounds.

Nigerian troops on Friday April 29, 2016, discovered a Boko Haram factory bomb making factory. Soldiers discovered the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) factory in Ngala town, North East Nigeria. Soldiers acted on intelligence reports to locate and destroy the bomb-making factory and that some Boko Haram members were killed in the process.

After a spate of deadly attacks in Nigeria this year blamed on ethnic Fulani cattle herders, the president has ordered a military crackdown on the group. Clashes between different groups of Fulani herders and farmers have killed thousands of people over the past two decades. In 2014, more than 1,200 people lost their lives. This made the Fulanis the world's fourth deadliest militant group. February 2016's massacre of some 300 people in central Benue state and last month's raid in southern Enugu state, where more than 40 were killed, caused outrage across Nigeria. Properties were destroyed and thousands of people forced to flee their homes. This led to growing anti-Fulani sentiment in some parts of the country. President Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Fulani, has responded to the public outcry and ordered the security forces to crack down on the cattle raiders. But the issue is much more complicated than this.

Militants attacked a Chevron platform in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region late on Wednesday May 4, 2016. It is the latest in a series of attacks on oil facilities in Africa's top oil exporter. President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to crack down on "vandals and saboteurs" in the Delta region, which produces most of the country's oil. There were no immediate details of any casualties.

On Friday May 6, 2016, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has finally signed into law a budget for 2016 after months of wrangling. He had refused to approve the $30.6bn budget amid claims of mismanagement and kickbacks among the officials who drew it up. The budget triples capital expenditure in Nigeria. Some 34 projects will get extra spending to help revive the economy, including improvements to power, health, and transport. The budget is based on an oil price of $38 per barrel, slightly below the current global market rate of just over $40.

Armed militants attacked a major Chevron oil and gas facility off Nigeria's southern coast we were told Friday May 6, 2016. Chevron was forced to shut production there but its exports will continue. A new group called the Niger Delta Avengers said it bombed Chevron's Okan platform on Wednesday and warned international companies that "the Nigerian military can't protect your facilities." ---

Unknown gunmen killed two Nigerian policemen in the oil-producing Niger Delta we were told Tuesday May 10, 2016, a day after five officers were shot dead in the region. The policemen were asleep and killed by some callous assailants. Gunmen have also killed three soldiers in Bayelsa state, which is also located in the Delta.

Regional and Western powers were on Saturday May 14, 2016, urged to do more to stop the threat from Boko Haram, as the UN voiced concern about the militants' ties to the Islamic State group and threat to African security. Nigeria invited leaders of its neighbours Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger to Abuja, whose troops will be deployed as part of a much-delayed 8,500-member regional force to combat the Islamists. But delegates -including French President Francois Hollande- were told that despite major gains since the last security summit two years ago in Paris, more needed to be done to eradicate Boko Haram and tackle the root causes of extremism. The final communique said a "global approach" was required, comprising hard and soft power, to end the threat.

One of the missing Chibok schoolgirls has been found in Nigeria, the first to be rescued since their capture two years ago. Amina Ali Nkeki was found carrying a baby by an army-backed vigilante group on Tuesday May 17, 2016, in the huge Sambisa Forest, close to the border with Cameroon. She was with a suspected member of the Boko Haram Islamist group. In all, 218 girls remain missing after their abduction from a secondary school in north-east Nigeria in April 2014. The girls were taken by militants from Boko Haram. Amina, now 19, was reportedly recognised by a civilian fighter of the Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF), a vigilante group set up to help fight Boko Haram, and briefly reunited with her mother. The Nigerian military named the suspected Boko Haram fighter as Mohammed Hayatu. He said he was Amina's husband. He has been arrested and taken to the regional capital Maiduguri, along with Amina and her baby, for medical attention.

On Tuesday evening May 17, 2016, militants operating in the Niger Delta may have again blown up a gas pipeline belonging to the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) at Ogbembiri in Southern Ijaw local government area, Bayelsa State. It would be more than a dozen times that the oil and gas facilities belonging to the Italian Oil giant would be breached this year alone. The fresh attack by gunmen occurred on the pipeline about 48 hours ago. Suspected ex-militants also recently attacked a pipeline carrying crude, located at Brass Local Government Area (LGA) of Bayelsa State, spilling the substance into the environment.

At least six civilians were killed and seven injured in an attack by Boko Haram Islamist fighters on Thursday evening May 19, 2016. Four of the victims were burned alive and two were shot dead during the attack near the south eastern garrison town of Bosso. The fighters struck the village of Yebi setting fire to the local market, 10 houses and killing several cattle before fleeing back with two stolen cars.

A crude oil pipeline in the southern state of Bayelsa operated by the local subsidiary of Italy's Eni was attacked on Sunday May 22, 2016. The Agip pipeline was attacked with dynamite in the early hours of Sunday. Eni, which operates in Nigeria through its subsidiary Nigerian Agip Oil Company, could not be immediately reached to comment on the attack. ---

On Saturday May 28, 2016, for the third time in a week, an armed group has attacked a major pipeline in Delta region. The Niger Delta Avengers group claimed responsibility for the attack. The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have been sabotaging Nigeria's oil infrastructure for months in bombings that have forced production to drop from 2.2 million barrels per day to twenty-year lows of 1.4 million barrels per day, a reduction of about 50%.

On Sunday May 29, 2016, troops on patrol in the Niger-Delta region averted attacks by militants on some critical oil infrastructures. The patrol team encountered some armed militants in two speed boats with intent to blow up Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) pipeline in Gulobokri and stopped them.

A tricycle taxi has triggered a homemade explosive buried near a military checkpoint that killed four civilians and a soldier in Nigeria's northeastern town of Biu. The Army blamed Boko Haram Islamic extremists for it. The victims include a mother and her baby. Sunday May 29, 2016's blast was caused by an IED buried long ago. The nearly seven-year-old insurgency has killed about 20,000 people.

Nigerian security forces clashed with oil militants and Biafran secessionists in separate bloody confrontations that killed at least 20 civilians and two police officers. The violence erupted Monday May 30, 2016, in the south. Over the weekend, soldiers fired on speedboats believed to be carrying Niger Delta militants preparing to strike oil installations and killed or wounded an unknown number. The Ijaw Youth Council, a community group, accused soldiers of firing Saturday night on a speedboat trying to evacuate civilians wounded in a military siege of Oporoza. Civilians have been wounded and beaten up by soldiers demanding that residents hand over members of the Niger Delta Avengers, a new group that has claimed attacks on strategic pipelines that have halved oil production in a country that used to be Africa's biggest petroleum producer. The offensive comes as the Avengers have mounted an increasingly fierce campaign targeting oil installations.

The army on Tuesday May 31, 2016, said that the religious violence, which claimed four lives in Rafi Local Government Area on Sunday, had been brought under control. The army, police and the NSCDC had restored peace in the area.  Methodus Emmanuel, a 24-year-old trader based in Padongari, was killed on Sunday by a mob over allegations of blasphemy. Three other persons, including personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps also lost their lives. A religious house, a house and a shop were burnt while 25 other shops were looted following the violence. The hoodlums embarked on further violence on Monday morning, looting shops and blocking the Lagos to Kaduna road, a major highway connecting the northern and southern parts of the country.

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) is the latest militant group to emerge in Nigeria. It attacks on oil installations threatens Nigeria’s economy. They are a group of educated and well-travelled individuals that are poised to take the Niger Delta struggle to new heights that has never been seen in this nation before. They have well-equipped human resources to meet this goal. It is not an idle threat. The NDA has carried out a barrage of attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta region, causing a huge decline in oil production, which is the mainstay of the West African state's economy.

On Thursday June 2, 2016, we were told that at least five people died and more than 2,000, mostly United Methodists, are homeless after violence broke out between the Shomo, Jole and Wurkun people here in a dispute over harvesting fish from a pond. Two United Methodist brothers were shot, another man was strangled and two people who fled to the bush starved to death. The home of the Rev. Benjamin Isa Dammare, pastor of the Didango charge of The United Methodist Church was burned down on April 24. ---

Niger Delta Avengers, the new militant group that has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta, continued its disruption of Nigeria's oil production with the bombing of more crude oil pipelines Thursday June 2, 2016. The group said it blew up Ogboinbiri to Tebidaba and Clough Creek to Tebidaba crude oil pipelines in Bayelsa State.

A woman identified as Bridget was beheaded by an angry Muslim mob in a busy market in Nigeria’s Kano state Thursday June 2, 2016, after she allegedly blasphemed against Muhammad during a dispute with a customer.

At least 32 soldiers have been killed in a clash with Boko Haram militants on Niger's border with Nigeria. The soldiers -30 from Niger and two from Nigeria- were killed when Boko Haram attacked the southeastern town of Bosso. 67 soldiers were wounded. Several Boko Haram fighters were killed and injured.

Nigerian troops in Borno on Friday June 3, 2016, killed a top Boko Haram commander and 18 other fighters. Several arms, ammunitions, vehicles and other items were recovered during the operation. The commander and his men were killed during a clearance operation on the terrorists' stronghold at Chukungudu with support from Air Force aerial surveillance. The operation was conducted following intelligence report about the activities of the insurgents in the area.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram militia injured three policemen when they attacked a police station in the northeastern town of Kanamma we were told Tuesday June 8, 2016. Kanamma is the birth place of the Islamist militant group, which has been fighting since 2009 to impose its own version of Islamic law in Nigeria.

Friday June 10, 2016, Nigerian militants said they have blown up another crude pipeline in Bayelsa state owned by Italian oil company Agip. The militants rejected the government's offer of peace talks. They also have blown up installations of Dutch-British Shell and U.S.-based oil company Chevron, halving Nigeria's production to about 1.2 million barrels a day. The assaults have ended years of relative peace in the delta and have lost Nigeria its place as Africa's biggest oil producer to Angola.

Boko Haram jihadists killed at least four villagers on Tuesday June 14, 2016, and kidnapped three women near the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok where the group snatched more than 200 girls two years ago. Boko Haram fighters attacked the Kautuva village at dawn, set houses ablaze and fired on residents.

Militants claimed to have blown up a pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. They said Thursday June 16, 2016, that they blew up NNPC pipeline in Oruk Anam Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom. The attack is a setback after the group signaled for the first time on June 13 that it would talk with the government of Africa’s second-largest crude producer if certain conditions were met.

Boko Haram fighters have killed at least 18 women at a funeral in northeast Nigeria. The attackers shot at mourners and set houses on fire after arriving on motorbikes in the village of Kuda near Madagali town in Adamawa state on Thursday evening June 16, 2016. At least 10 people were injured in the incident. Some women were still missing.

At least 19 people died on Sunday June 19, 2016, in a ghastly auto crash along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. The accident involved a fuel-loaded truck which attempted to overtake a truck carrying Dangote cement. The fuel truck collided with an 18-seater bus heading towards Lagos. The accident occurred at a point of diversion of vehicles on the road, considered the busiest inter-state road in Nigeria. All the 18 passengers in the bus and the driver died on the spot.

Troops of the Nigerian Army in Bauchi State on Sunday June 19, 2016, killed three suspects during a raid on a kidnappers den. The suspected kidnappers also engaged in cattle rustling around Bauchi State. The troops encountered the armed bandits and after fierce exchange of gun fire, they were overpowered. The troops killed 3 of the armed bandits and rescued 3 kidnapped females held hostages by the bandits pending payment of ransom. The patrol team also recovered many items including arms and ammunitions before destroying the camp. ---

Gunmen in southern Nigeria have killed a local driver and kidnapped two Nigerians, three Australians, a New Zealander and a South African working for an Australian mining company. The abduction happened in the Akpabuyo district near the capital of Cross River state, Calabar on Wednesday we were told Thursday June 23, 2016. Those taken were believed to be workers with Australian mining and engineering giant Macmahon, which was contracted to cement company LafargeHolcim in the state.

Nearly 200 refugees who fled Boko Haram attacks have died of starvation and dehydration in the northeastern Nigerian city of Bama in the past month, Doctors Without Borders said on Wednesday June 23, 2016. This catastrophic humanitarian emergency is unfolding at a makeshift camp on a hospital compound where 24,000 people have taken refuge.

Sunday June 26, 2016, the Nigerian army says it has rescued more than 5,000 people who were being held hostage by Boko Haram following a clearing operation in four remote villages in the northeastern Borno state. The soldiers evacuated the villages of Zangebe, Maiwa, Algaiti and Mainari.

Three Australians, two Nigerians, a New Zealander and a South African were in a "safe location" on Monday June 27, 2016, a day after they were freed from kidnappers who ambushed a police convoy last week in southeastern Nigeria and killed a driver. Five of the men had been injured during the kidnapping and two of them remained in a serious but stable condition.

Two would-be suicide bombers were killed in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, on Monday June 27, 2016, after apparently trying to target an overnight Ramadan vigil. There were two explosions outside the mosque on the Damboa Road this morning but luckily no deaths were recorded apart from the two bombers. The bombers were disguised as worshippers wanting to attend the "Tahajjud" or night prayer at the mosque but were stopped by security.

The former head of Sierra Leone's army, Major-General Nelson Williams, has been kidnapped in Nigeria On Friday July 1, 2016. Maj-Gen Williams, Sierra Leone's Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, was believed to have been travelling there for a ceremony at a military base. Also terrorists have kidnapped two Indian nationals from Gboko, a town in the Benue state of north-central Nigeria. Mangipudi Sai Srinivas who hails from Visakhapatnam and his colleague Anish Sharma were reportedly kidnapped on Wednesday. Sharma and Srinivas were travelling to Dangote Cement Plc. Plant in a car from their residential quarters when a group of armed men kidnapped them at a traffic signal.

Suspected pirates have killed three men working for the Nigerian Agip Oil Company in the West African country's swamplands we were told Friday July 1, 2016. The workers were ambushed on Wednesday while doing repairs on pipelines operated by Agip, a subsidiary of Italian oil company Eni, in the creeks of southern Bayelsa State. Two engineers and a driver were killed. ---

The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group that has been carrying out attacks on Nigerian oil facilities in the past few months, claimed responsibility on Sunday July 3, 2016, for five new attacks in the southern energy hub since Friday. Attacks in the Niger Delta have pushed Nigerian crude production to 30-year lows. The Avengers said they had attacked a pipeline connected to the Warri refinery operated by NNPC on Friday night. They added that they blew up two lines on Saturday night close to Batan flow station in Delta state run by NPDC, a subsidiary of NNPC. The militants also said two Chevron facilities close to Abiteye flow station, in Delta state, came under attack early on Sunday. All five operations" were carried out by an Avengers strike team.

Nigeria's army thwarted three suicide bombings when soldiers killed two female suspects before they were able to attack displaced people, while a third died when her explosives detonated prematurely. The trio tried to attack internally displaced people collecting water at a well on the outskirts of Monguno, in Borno state. Two of the three women, who he described as "Boko Haram terrorists suicide bombers", were shot and killed, causing their explosives to detonate, injuring two civilians. The third suspect's explosives went off about an hour later at a nearby location. The attempted attack came just before the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is marked in Nigeria with two days' public holiday on Tuesday and Wednesday July 6, 2016.

A Sierra Leonean diplomat who was kidnapped in Nigeria has been freed unharmed five days after his abduction. Alfred Nelson-Williams, defence attache and deputy head of the Sierra Leonean mission in Nigeria, was abducted on Friday while travelling from Abuja to the northern city of Kaduna. The diplomat has been reunited with the Sierra Leonean High Commissioner (ambassador) and his family on Tuesday July 5, 2016.

Suspected militants have blown up a pipeline in Nigeria's southern delta region we were told Tuesday July 5, 2016, the latest in a string of attacks on oil facilities that have hit production. The attacks happened Monday in the Batan and Makarava areas of Delta State.

On Sunday July 10, 2016, militants launched a fresh round of attacks on oil pipelines in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta energy hub belonging to Italy's Eni and Aiteo, Nigerian security forces, Eni and a militant group said. The attacks are the latest in a spate targeting oil and gas facilities in the OPEC member's Niger Delta region over the last few months which briefly pushed oil production this spring to 30-year lows. Niger Delta Avengers blew up the Nembe 1, 2 and 3 trunkline in Bayelsa and Rivers states which is owned by the Aiteo group.

Boko Haram gunmen stormed a town in northeast Nigeria's Borno state near the border with Cameroon killing seven people on Saturday July 9, 2016; two soldiers died as well as 16 Islamists. Gunmen on motorcycles raided the town of Rann in Kalabalge district overnight Friday to Saturday and opened fire on homes. The gunmen opened fire on homes as people slept and killed seven people before carting away their food supplies and drugs from the only clinic in the town.

The Nigerian army cleared a major road that links the country to Cameroon and Chad after wrestling control from the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. The road, closed since 2013, links many towns, including Maiduguri, Diffa, Gambaru Ngala.

Police have arrested eleven gang members for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping of a Sierra Leonean diplomat last month in the northern Kaduna State. Alfred Nelson-Williams, deputy Ambassador of Sierra Leone and defense attache at the embassy in Nigeria’s administrative capital Abuja, was kidnapped late last month (June 30) while traveling to a military ceremony. He was released on 5th July. The gang had also kidnapped a director of Dangote Group, one of the largest African companies. The kidnappers, dressed in “military uniforms” staged a fake “roadblock. After the kidnapping, “they moved constantly in the forest to avoid detection”. Now back in Sierra Leone since his release, the diplomat revealed on Monday July 11, 2016, that he was abducted by men stationed at a checkpoint, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles. ---

Oil militants have blown up a state-owned gas pipeline, the first such attack in Nigeria's southwest. Oil militants have slashed Nigerian oil production with attacks this year on installations in the south. They seek a greater share of profits for residents who have lost livelihoods to industry pollution that has destroyed agriculture and fishing grounds. We were told on Thursday July 14, 2016, that "hoodlums" pretending to carry out repairs planted dynamite that blew up a major gas pipeline of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. overnight. Disruptions to gas used to generate power have compounded Nigeria's chronic electricity shortages.

Two indians, Vizag-based civil engineer M Sai Srinivas and his colleague Anish Sharma, who were kidnapped in Nigeria on June 29, were reportedly released on Saturday July 16, 2016. Both have spoken to their families. Sharma's wife profusely thanked the External Affairs Minister for ensuring safe release. She also thanked the Ministry and the Mission for keeping the family informed of developments almost on daily basis. As far as it is known there is no hand of terror group Boko Haram and it seems local criminal elements were responsible for the act. The 44-year-old engineer was kidnapped at a petrol filling station on June 29 while he, along with his colleague, was on way to the cement factory in Gboko town of Benue state in north central Nigeria. A group of men surrounded their car, dragged the driver out and took them away. Srinivas has been working for the Dangote Cement in Gboko for the last three years.

Militants in Nigeria have attacked a crude oil pipeline on the outskirts of Warri, a city in the Niger Delta, which is operated by a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) we were told on Monday July 18, 2016. Two blasts were heard.

Nigeria's military freed 80 women and children from a far-flung village in the country's northeast. The 42 women and 38 children were rescued on Tuesday July 19, 2016, after soldiers infiltrated a Boko Haram meeting in Gangere village. More than 40 militants were killed in the operation.

On Friday July 15, 2016, more than 100 Muslim extremist youths attacked a church on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, as the church congregation gathered for a prayer meeting. The attackers shouted that “only Muslims have the right to pray on Friday” and “Christians are only allowed to worship on Sunday” before the mob began physically assaulting the Christians and causing damage to the church building. Friday is the Islamic holy day, the focal point of which is midday prayers at the mosque. Some of the Christians were badly beaten and it was reported that church windows and musical instruments inside the church were broken.

The Nigerian secret police on Saturday July 23, 2016, told us they arrested a militant who they say confessed to carrying out recent attacks on oil pipelines in the energy-rich south. The man named Jones Abiri also uses the alias General Akotebe Darikoro. The arrest took place on Thursday in Yenagoa in southern Nigeria, amid "ongoing tactical operations to degrade the capabilities and hideouts of criminal gangs" in the country. The DSS claimed the militant confessed to attacking pipelines operated by Agip -the Nigerian subsidiary of Italy's Eni- and Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell. Several recent attacks, including assaults on pipelines operated by Shell and Agip, have been claimed by a militant group named the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA.

Five of the 19 soldiers who went missing after an ambush by Boko Haram insurgents in the northeast have been found. The military launched a search for the troops after they went missing Thursday July 21, 2016, during a military operation in the town of Alagarno in Borno state, the epicentre of Boko Haram's seven-year Islamist insurgency. Although they are in a stable condition, they have been moved to our medical facilities for medical care; the other 14 are still unaccounted for. ---

Oil militants have blown up a state-owned gas pipeline, the first such attack in Nigeria's southwest. Oil militants have slashed Nigerian oil production with attacks this year on installations in the south. They seek a greater share of profits for residents who have lost livelihoods to industry pollution that has destroyed agriculture and fishing grounds. We were told on Thursday July 14, 2016, that "hoodlums" pretending to carry out repairs planted dynamite that blew up a major gas pipeline of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. overnight. Disruptions to gas used to generate power have compounded Nigeria's chronic electricity shortages.

Two Indians, Vizag-based civil engineer M Sai Srinivas and his colleague Anish Sharma, who were kidnapped in Nigeria on June 29, were reportedly released on Saturday July 16, 2016. Both have spoken to their families. Sharma's wife profusely thanked the External Affairs Minister for ensuring safe release. She also thanked the Ministry and the Mission for keeping the family informed of developments almost on daily basis. As far as it is known there is no hand of terror group Boko Haram and it seems local criminal elements were responsible for the act. The 44-year-old engineer was kidnapped at a petrol filling station on June 29 while he, along with his colleague, was on way to the cement factory in Gboko town of Benue state in north central Nigeria. A group of men surrounded their car, dragged the driver out and took them away. Srinivas has been working for the Dangote Cement in Gboko for the last three years.

Militants in Nigeria have attacked a crude oil pipeline on the outskirts of Warri, a city in the Niger Delta, which is operated by a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) we were told on Monday July 18, 2016. Two blasts were heard.

Nigeria's military freed 80 women and children from a far-flung village in the country's northeast. The 42 women and 38 children were rescued on Tuesday July 19, 2016, after soldiers infiltrated a Boko Haram meeting in Gangere village. More than 40 militants were killed in the operation.

On Friday July 15, 2016, more than 100 Muslim extremist youths attacked a church on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, as the church congregation gathered for a prayer meeting. The attackers shouted that “only Muslims have the right to pray on Friday” and “Christians are only allowed to worship on Sunday” before the mob began physically assaulting the Christians and causing damage to the church building. Friday is the Islamic holy day, the focal point of which is midday prayers at the mosque. Some of the Christians were badly beaten and it was reported that church windows and musical instruments inside the church were broken.

The Nigerian secret police on Saturday July 23, 2016, told us they arrested a militant who they say confessed to carrying out recent attacks on oil pipelines in the energy-rich south. The man named Jones Abiri also uses the alias General Akotebe Darikoro. The arrest took place on Thursday in Yenagoa in southern Nigeria, amid "ongoing tactical operations to degrade the capabilities and hideouts of criminal gangs" in the country. The DSS claimed the militant confessed to attacking pipelines operated by Agip -the Nigerian subsidiary of Italy's Eni- and Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell. Several recent attacks, including assaults on pipelines operated by Shell and Agip, have been claimed by a militant group named the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA.

Five of the 19 soldiers who went missing after an ambush by Boko Haram insurgents in the northeast have been found. The military launched a search for the troops after they went missing Thursday July 21, 2016, during a military operation in the town of Alagarno in Borno state, the epicentre of Boko Haram's seven-year Islamist insurgency. Although they are in a stable condition, they have been moved to our medical facilities for medical care; the other 14 are still unaccounted for.

Troops of Operation LAFIYA DOLE ambushed Boko Haram terrorists crossing into Sambisa forest from Komala and Musafanari axis with logistics items. The ambush party killed 2 Boko Haram terrorists, while 2 soldiers sustained gunshot wounds

Nigerian police have arrested a pastor after rescuing his nine-year-old son, whom the father allegedly locked in a room for several weeks without regular food. The boy was rescued by police in Ogun state, in southwestern Nigeria, on Friday July 22, 2016. The pastor, 40, told police that he had locked up his son as part of a ritual designed to stop him from stealing. The boy claimed to have been held in detention without adequate food for more than a month. He was in a very bad shape, greatly emaciated because of poor feeding. The boy was rescued from a room near a church in Atan, Ogun state, after police received a tip-off. ---

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday July 26, 2016, raised its benchmark interest rate to 14 percent from 12 percent in move to stabilise the country's currency, the naira, and tame soaring inflation. Financial analysts welcomed the decision.

Nigerian militants on Sunday July 31, 2016, blew up a crude pipeline operated by Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell in the oil-producing south. The incident occurred near Odimodi community in Delta State with the velocity of the blast shaking apartments in the community amidst a huge ball of fire. The trunk line known as Trans Ramos belongs to the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

UNICEF confirmed Thursday 28 July, 2016, that unknown assailants had ambushed a convoy carrying goods and staff from UNICEF, the UN’s Population Fund, and the International Organisation for Migration, to those in need of assistance in the state. One UNICEF employee and one IOM contractor were injured. The UN has suspended humanitarian assistance missions by UN staff to high risk areas as a result, but UNICEF stressed that it continues to provide supplies to conflict-affected children.

Nigeria's army killed 349 people –including a soldier- from the minority Shi'ite Muslim sect last December in a series of clashes for which troops involved should be prosecuted. The report published on Sunday confirms claims by human rights groups such as Amnesty International that the army killed hundreds of Shi'ite Muslims during three days of clashes in the northern city of Zaria. Out of the 349 dead persons, 347 (excluding the soldier) were buried in a mass grave.

The Islamic State (IS) militant group has announced Thursday August 4, 2016, that its West African affiliate Boko Haram has a new leader, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, who was previously spokesman for the Nigerian-based Islamists. It does not say what has become of the group's former leader Abubakar Shekau.

The disputed leader of Boko Haram has said on Friday August 5, 2016, that he is still in charge of Nigeria's militant Islamist group despite a statement by so-called Islamic State that he had been replaced. Abubakar Shekau denounced the IS declaration that Abu Musab al-Barnawi was now leader. Shekau accused al-Barnawi of trying to stage a coup against him. Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow Nigeria's government and establish an Islamic State in the north. In the last 18 months it has lost most of the territory it had controlled after being pushed back by an offensive by the forces of Nigeria and its neighbours. ---

Nigeria has arrested seven people for providing the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) militants with high-caliber explosives and detonators. The militant group has been conducting sabotage activities against Nigeria’s oil facilities since March. On Thursday August 4, 2016, we were told that the staff of an explosives-distribution company in the Niger Delta had diverted the explosives to the militants. A detailed audit of the records of explosives magazines and quarries in that region was conducted, which revealed the diversion of about 9,000 kg of high explosives and 16,420 pieces of detonators for illegal use. The actors, including the storeman of a major explosives distribution company in Nigeria, an accomplice and five security operatives, have been arrested and handed over to the appropriate authorities.

Eleven Nigerian troops have been killed in clashes with gunrunners and bandits in the north central region we were told Saturday August 6, 2016. The troops, comprising soldiers and airmen, came under attack from gunmen during operations to confiscate illegal weapons from the villages of Kopa, Dagma and Gagaw in Niger State. While approaching and deploying to carry out their duty, the troops came under simultaneous and sporadic shootings in all the three locations. Sadly, an officer and eight soldiers of the Nigerian Army and two airmen of the Nigeria Air Force lost their lives. Another soldier remained missing while two more were wounded. The gunrunners also torched four military vehicles and vandalised two others. Eight gunmen were killed and 57 others arrested during the army operation during which a cache of arms and ammunition were recovered.

Gunmen have kidnapped two Chinese miners in central Nigeria. Local hunters and others are helping the police in "a very intense search" for the miners in the forest and bush of Nasarawa state. The gunmen ambushed the vehicle carrying the miners Friday afternoon on the road to Abuja, the capital. They work for Chinese company West African Polaris Ltd., which mines tin and columbite. Kidnappings of foreigners and locals are common all over Nigeria. Victims usually are returned unharmed once a ransom is paid.

Militants blew up another crude pipeline in Nigeria's Niger Delta we were told Thursday August 11, 2016. Protesters also continued to block the entrance to a Chevron oil depot in the southern region for a third day. On Wednesday, a previously unknown group called Delta Greenland Justice Mandate said it had attacked a crude pipeline belonging to state oil firm NNPC and local firm Shoreline Natural Resources in Urhobo in Delta state. Protesters, mostly unemployed youths, were continuing a demonstration started on Tuesday at the gate of a Chevron oil depot to demand jobs and housing, claiming the facility had destroyed their settlement. Nobody is going in and out of the facility but Chevron has airlifted their senior staff from there. Chevron confirmed a protest had taken place but did not say whether oil production had been affected.

After more than two years without wild poliovirus in Nigeria, the Government reported on Thursday August 11, 2016, that 2 children have been paralyzed by the disease in the northern Borno state. The Government of Nigeria is collaborating with WHO and other partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to respond urgently and prevent more children from being paralyzed. These steps include conducting large-scale immunization campaigns and strengthening surveillance systems that help catch the virus early. These activities are also being strengthened in neighboring countries.

Boko Haram demanded the freedom of terrorist prisoners in exchange for the release of the Chibok schoolgirls on Sunday August 14, 2016, as Nigeria's Islamist gunmen published a new video showing 50 of their captives. The girls, who were kidnapped from a Christian school in the town of Chibok in 2014, are shown swathed in dark Islamic veils, standing against the backdrop of a black tarpaulin. One of the girls identifies herself as Maida Yakubu and says in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria: “What I can say is that our parents should take heart. Talk to the government so that we can be allowed to go home." A masked commander then demands the freedom of Boko Haram terrorists. "We don't want to do anything with these girls, our demand remains the same". "We want the government to release our fighters who have been in detention for ages; otherwise, we will never release these girls." ---

At least 10 inmates and a prison officer have been shot and killed in an attempted jailbreak in southeastern Nigeria, though police say they only shot into the air and used tear gas. One prisoner disarmed a guard, killed him and wounded two others in Thursday August 18, 2016's riot at Abakaliki Prison in Ebonyi state.

Two Nigerian state-owned oil pipelines were blown up in the delta region Friday August 19, 2016, in attacks blamed on the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) militant group. Both pipelines belonged to the NPDC (Nigerian Petroleum Development Company). Also on Friday, a newly emerged armed group calling itself the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate (NDGJM) claimed responsibility for an attack the same day in Udu State. It was the second claim of responsibility by the group, which earlier this month claimed to have blown up a major pipeline and warned of more attacks to come. The creation of the group was announced scarcely two days earlier; it warned that the NDGJM would strike at oil installations within 48 hours. The oil rebels have also said the Niger Delta, home to the country's multi-billion-dollar oil and gas resources, might declare independence on October 1.

Tuesday August 23, 2016, the army believes an airstrike has "fatally wounded" Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and killed about 300 militants. Nigerian security forces have at least three times in the past declared that they have killed or fatally wounded Shekau, only to have him resurface in video and audio recordings. The Nigerian Air Force carried out an air raid" while Shekau was praying on Friday at Taye village in the Sambisa Forest holdout in northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram terrorist commanders confirmed dead include Abubakar Mubi, Malam Nuhu and Malam Hamman, amongst others. While their leader, so-called 'Abubakar Shekau,' is believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders. Several other terrorists were also wounded. We will see if that is right.

A Muslim mob in northern Nigeria has killed eight people after torching the house of a man who tried to save a Christian student accused of blasphemy we were told Tuesday August 23, 2016. The mob of Muslim students in the town of Talata Mafara were enraged over alleged derogatory comments about the Prophet Mohammed by their Christian schoolmate, who they attacked. The victim was rescued by a passerby, a Muslim who rushed him to the police station for safety. The mob then burned down the house of the rescuer with eight people inside. The man who rescued the student and his wife were not among the dead.

A militant group said on Tuesday August 30, 2016, it attacked a pipeline operated by a subsidiary of Nigeria's state oil company in the country's southern Delta region. Opec member Nigeria has seen its oil output fall by around 700,000 barrels a day to 1.56 million bpd due to attacks on oil pipelines in the southern energy hub, home to much of the country's oil and gas wealth, since the start of the year. The Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate said it attacked the Ogor-Oteri pipeline in Delta state, operated by Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and Nigerian energy company Shoreline.

Africa's largest economy, Nigeria, has officially entered recession after two consecutive quarters of contraction. Gross domestic product shrank by 2.06% in the second quarter of 2016, following a 0.36% shrinking in the first quarter, according to data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday August 31, 2016. It is its first recession in more than 20 years. ---

Nigeria’s economic slump deepened in the second quarter as a declining oil industry weighed on output. Gross domestic product in Africa’s most populous country contracted by 2.1 percent in the three months through June from a year earlier we were told on Wednesday August 31, 2016, after shrinking 0.4 percent in the first quarter. Nigeria suffered a revenue squeeze after oil prices slumped by half since mid-2014, and crude exports fell by over 20 percent in the second quarter as militants in the Niger River delta blew up pipelines and reduced output. Crude production fell to 1.69 million barrels per day in the second quarter, from 2.11 million barrels in the three months through March. The oil industry contracted by 17.5 percent in the period. The non-oil sector, which includes manufacturing, banking and agriculture, shrank 0.4 percent.

Rescue workers are searching for seven passengers who are believed to have drowned in Gumi River in Zamfara during a boat mishap Tuesday August 30, 2016. The boat was ferrying 22 passengers instead of 10 passengers, mainly farmers from their farms to town when it capsized. Some passengers had been rescued while local swimmers in the area were still in search of not fewer than seven passengers.

An emergency polio vaccination campaign aimed at reaching 25 million children this year has begun in parts of Nigeria newly freed from Boko Haram Islamic extremists, with fears that many more cases of the crippling disease will likely be found. Two toddlers discovered last month were Nigeria’s first reported polio cases in more than two years, putting the world on alert just months after the African continent was declared free of the disease.

Gunmen have abducted 15 workers (and their driver) of a major Nigerian oil facility in the south as unrest continues to plague the African country’s main source of revenue. We were told Saturday September 3, 2016, that the oil workers were on their way to the facility in Port Harcourt when they were kidnapped late on Friday. Those seized were employees of Nestoil, an oil and gas service firm active in Rivers.

Nigeria is on the brink of a famine unlike any we have ever seen anywhere we were told Friday September 9, 2016. Nearly a quarter of a million children in Nigeria's north east are severely malnourished. Millions more are thought to be starving in refugee camps that are too dangerous for aid agencies to reach.

Boko Haram militants killed five soldiers and injured six others during an ambush attack Monday September 12, 2016, in Toumour, Niger, near the border with Nigeria. This shows that Boko Haram can still carry out successful attacks across Nigeria's border into Niger, Chad and Cameroon even as Nigeria's government has vowed to wipe out the terror group. Soldiers fought back during the deadly attack, killing 30 Boko Haram fighters and seizing a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

A militant group in Nigeria's Delta region attacked an oil pipeline operated by Shoreline and NPDC on Tuesday September 13, 2016. The group, which calls itself the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate "brought down the Afiesere-Iwhrenene major delivery line". ---

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Multinational force battled Boko Haram fighters for control of a town in the country's northeast. The fighting on Tuesday and Wednesday (September 21, 2016) around the town of Malam Fatori in Borno state, near the border with Niger and Chad, was the latest in the area which has changed hands many times in Boko Haram's seven-year armed campaign that has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced more than two million in Nigeria. Government and troops from the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) captured Malam Fatori on Tuesday and killed several Boko Haram members. But, Boko Haram fighters counterattacked and the government troops retreated when Boko Haram regrouped with reinforcements and mounted new attacks.

Islamic extremists said Tuesday September 20, 2016, they killed more than 40 troops from a multinational force in an attack on a convoy in the town of Malam Fatori in northeast Nigeria the fourth attack in three days. Eighteen people were killed Sunday and Monday when insurgents ambushed another convoy, gunned down Christians leaving a Sunday church service and beheaded a village head and his son. Tuesday’s was the first Nigeria attack claimed by the IS group since August, when it named a new caliph in Nigeria and provoked a struggle with the longtime leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau. ---

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Nigerian militants on Thursday September 29, 2016, claimed another attack on a pipeline in the country's oil-rich south. The Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate (NDGJM) said it had "bombed the Unenurhie-Evwreni delivery line" in the Ughelli area of Delta state. The pipeline is operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, a subsidiary of the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

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Twenty-one schoolgirls who had been kidnapped by the Islamist group Boko Haram in the Nigerian town of Chibok have been reunited with their families Sunday October 16, 2016. It is unclear how the release was negotiated, but more talks are under way to free some more girls. Of the 276 students kidnapped in April 2014, 197 are still missing.

Nigeria’s government is negotiating the release of another 83 of the Chibok schoolgirls taken in a mass abduction two-and-a-half years ago, but more than 100 others appear unwilling to leave their Boko Haram Islamic extremist captors we were told Tuesday October 18, 2016. The unwilling girls may have been radicalized by Boko Haram or are ashamed to return home because they were forced to marry extremists and have babies. ---

Four days after an ambush by Boko Haram, at least 83 Nigerian soldiers are still missing, including a commanding officer. As of Friday October 21, 2016, the men were still considered missing in action. The missing commanding officer was identified as K. Yusuf, a lieutenant colonel of the 223 Tank Battalion in Gashigar. The men were stationed at an outpost in Gashigar, Borno State, when Boko Haram opened fire forcing them to abandon their positions. Faced with an excessive amount of firepower Monday, several men ran into the River Yobe and drowned as they attempted to escape. At least 22 soldiers who sustained some wounds were taken to a hospital. Several others were also fatally wounded in the attack. Due to the lack of armored tanks, the men could not withstand the attack. The troops only had two light armored tanks and were forced to withdraw.

On Friday October 28, 2016, we were told that the UN has negotiated the release of 876 children who were being held by the army over possible links to Islamist militants. The children, who had previously lived in areas controlled by Boko Haram, were held in a military barracks in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

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Nigeria's security forces have killed more than 150 peaceful protesters since August 2015, a human rights group has claimed. Amnesty International said the military used live ammunition and deadly force against pro-Biafra protesters who were campaigning for an independent state in the south-east. Nigeria's police denies allegations that it used unnecessary force. Amnesty's report is based on interviews with almost 200 people, alongside more than 100 photographs and 87 videos. Among the allegations contained in the report are what Amnesty called "extrajudicial executions", when 60 people were shot and killed in south-eastern Onitsha city, in the two days surrounding Biafra Remembrance Day in May 2016.

A petrol tanker exploded December 2, 2016, burned 8 people in Tegina. The victims were taken to hospital with burns, two of them in "very critical condition" while eight homes were burnt in the inferno.

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The poorly constructed church that collapsed in southern Nigeria on Saturday December 10, 2016, killing 160 worshippers, and injuring many others. The tragic incident occurred at the Reigners Bible Church International in the city of Uyo as Christians were gathered to celebrate the consecration of Akan Weeks, the church’s bishop and founder. The church’s “metal girders fell and the corrugated iron roof caved in. Community members are reporting that the church had been in the latter stages of construction when builders expedited the project to make sure the building was ready for Saturday’s event; the builders may have circumvented safety codes as a result.

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President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to return to Nigeria Friday March 10, 2017. The President left the country on January 19, 2017 for a vacation, during which he had routine medical check-ups. The holiday was extended based on doctors' recommendation for further tests and rest.

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Five suicide bombers, all male adults, were involved in the incidents. Muna camp is home to tens of thousands of people who have fled the Boko Haram insurgency. ---

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-    President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Nigeria after more than three months in London for medical treatment; the government gave no details on what exactly has been ailing him.
-    The 74-year-old leader spent seven weeks in London for treatment earlier this year and said he had never been so sick in his life. He spoke of receiving blood transfusions.

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-    Fifteen people were killed when a passenger boat capsized in Nigeria's commercial hub of Lagos; the accident was due to overcrowding. The sinking occurred in the waterfront community of Ilashe.

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Gunmen have killed five villagers in central the Plateau state but it was not immediately clear if the killings were linked to a long-running battle over grazing rights.

The incident happened late on Wednesday in Rawuru village in the Barkin Ladi district of the state, an area beset with clashes between local farmers and nomadic Fulani herdsmen.

The victims were returning from a birthday party in the neighbouring Pugu village when they were attacked.

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Gunmen suspected to be banned drug dealers have killed four officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. The NDLEA officers were killed at a checkpoint along Ikon/Owo, area, under the Ifon Division of the agency in Ondo State.
The officers were attacked on Sunday evening by a ‘three-man’ gang who wielded AK47 rifles.

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- At least 10 people have died and many more are feared trapped after a building containing a school collapsed in the Nigerian city of Lagos.
The school, which was on the top floor of the four-storey building in Ita Faji on Lagos Island, had more than 100 pupils. About 40 pupils had been pulled out alive

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When 276 schoolgirls were abducted from a school in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria five years ago by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, the world was outraged and their kidnapping dominated international headlines.

Almost 60 girls managed to escape in the melee following their abduction while others have been released in the last few years, but about 100 are still missing and their condition is unknown.

As Nigeria marks the fifth anniversary of the abduction on Sunday, here are 10 facts about the missing Chibok girls whose fate has largely disappeared in world news:

1. The abduction of 276 schoolgirls aged 14 to 25 from a school in Chibok in Nigeria's northeast Borno state on April 14, 2014, was Boko Haram's most high-profile kidnapping.

2. Boko Haram kidnapped thousands, killed more than 20,000 people, and forced about 2 million to flee their homes since it began an insurgency in 2009 aimed at creating an Islamic state in the northeast of Nigeria.

3. At least 4,000 girls, boys and women have been abducted by Boko Haram since 2009, according to a 2018 Amnesty International report, with reports that they were used as cooks, sex slaves, fighters and even carriers of suicide bombs.

4. A social media campaign on the schoolgirls' abduction went viral, boosted by support from then U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and media celebrities. The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag was tweeted about 3.3 million times by mid-May 2014.

5. There was no sign of the girls until May 2016 when Amina Ali, 21, and her four-month-old baby were rescued in Borno state by soldiers and a civilian vigilante group.

6. In October 2016, 21 girls were released after mediation by Nigerian teacher and lawyer Zannah Mustapha, who went on to win a United Nations award for his efforts.

7. A further 82 girls were freed in May 2017 after mediation involving a payment to the insurgents and the release of some of the group's imprisoned senior members.

8. Boko Haram released a video in January 2018 which purported to show five Chibok girls, some holding babies, who said they did not want to return home because they were happy living with the militants.

9. Nigeria sentenced Haruna Yahaya to 15 years imprisonment in February 2018, the first person to face justice for the Chibok kidnapping, as part of a mass trial of suspected Boko Haram members.

10. A newly released captive, 35-year-old Jumai, who was taken before the schoolgirl kidnapping, said in October 2018 that she had lived with six of the Chibok girls in the first good news to emerge after months of silence.

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Norway

. Philippine
- Two bombs exploded in a crowded shopping centre in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga on October 17, 2002, killing six people and injuring 143. The terrorist group, Abu Sayyaf, is said to be responsible. Another bomb on a parked bicycle exploded near a crowded Roman Catholic shrine in the southern Philippine on October 20, 2002, and killed a soldier while 18 persons were wounded.
- On March 4, 2003, a bomb at the airport of Davao on the Mindanao Island killed 19 people and injured about 150. The responsible were unknown but there is no doubt that it was a terrorist action.
- On December 30, 2003, The Philippines deported two American, Michael Ray and James Stubbs, suspected of being linked to local Muslim militants and al-Qaida charities. Michael Stubbs worked ten years to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in San Francisco as a heating and air conditioning technician. It is not certain if he had access to sensitive information.
- On March 30, 2004, the Philippine president, Gloria Arroyo said that the local police prevented a Madrid-type attack in Manila. Four suspected terrorist militants of the Abu Sayyaf group were arrested and 36 kg of TNT explosive seized. Other men suspected of links with Jemaah Ialamiyah, the local al-Qaida branch, have also been arrested these last days.
- On July 8, 2004, the government forbad its citizens to go working in Iraq after an Arab television station showed militants threatening to kill a Filipino hostage if his country does not withdraw its troops from Iraq. Fifty-one Philippines soldiers and police are part of the multinational force in Iraq. The deployment is scheduled to end later this month, and Manila has been considering whether to extend their tour of duty.
- On July 23, 2004, President Arroyo ordered that Filipino truck drivers working in countries near Iraq are stopped at the border should they attempt to enter that country. Saudi and Kuwaiti companies involved in the reconstruction of Iraq hire foreigners to transport crude oil and construction materials into that country. Some 4,000 Filipino workers are currently working in Iraq. They were hired directly by the US and British companies that won contracts for rebuilding the country.
- On July 25, 2004, American and British companies that won reconstruction projects in Iraq said that they might have to terminate the contracts of some 4,100 Filipino workers owing to Manila's measures to protect its citizens. An official of the Philippines-Iraq Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Team admitted that losing job opportunities is the consequence that the Philippines might face following the ban on Filipino truck drivers crossing into Iraq. The official added British and US companies could instead source their manpower requirement from the 80 other countries of the Coalition of the Willings.
- On July 26, 2004, the last 34 members of the Philippine humanitarian contingent in Iraq arrived in Manila. The contingent whose primary mission was "to contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq" left the war-torn country ahead of the August 20 scheduled date of departure to help free kidnapped truck driver Angelo de la Cruz from Iraqi militants. The military contingent provided some minor engineering work in Iraq while the police helped train future Iraqi policemen.
- On September 12, 2004, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo assured the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) that the Philippines will not deploy other peacekeeping forces to Iraq. The Philippines withdrew earlier than scheduled its 43-member peacekeeping force from Iraq last July, in an effort to save the life of a Filipino worker held hostage by militants. The United States, as well as other members of the Coalition of the Willings, expressed disappointment over this decision. The OIC welcomed the.
- A Filipino was shot and killed in Iraq's capital, prompting officials to renew their appeal Monday April 18, 2005, to thousands of Philippine workers in the war-torn country to return home. Rey Torres, a security guard and driver employed by Qatar International Trading Company, was shot dead Sunday night in Baghdad.

- Islamic militants in the southern Philippines have killed 14 marines on July 11, 2007, beheading 10 of them. Nine other marines were wounded and at least four rebels were killed during the incident on Basilan Island. The clash took place as the marines were searching for an Italian priest seized in June by kidnappers believed to be from either Abu Sayyaf or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

- On September 23, 2009, we were told that the Philippines army has captured a top Muslim rebel, Camarudin Hadji Ali, a claim denied by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The military claim came after days of fighting between the army and another rebel group, Abu Sayyaf, in which more than 30 rebels were killed. At least eight marines were also killed in the fighting, on Jolo Island.

. Poland
- On April 21, 2004, Poland is showing signs of thinking of pulling back its 2,400 soldiers from Iraq. Obviously the Spanish decision is an eye opening for other countries. Australia has also some doubts about keeping their 800 soldiers there. We should let the Americans alone to sort out the mess they have created. Even the Iraqis working with the occupiers have cold feet. It is known that 10% of the Iraqi security forces work against the Americans and 40% have left their job following intimidation.
- On May 7, 2004, two journalists working for a Polish television (the polish Waldemar Milewicz and the polish-Algerian Mounir Bouamrane) were killed, and a third wounded (cameraman Jerzy Ernst) on the road from Baghdad to Kerbala and Najaf. They were driving through Iskandiriya when then were gunned down.
- Poland could send troops to Afghanistan as part of a planned pullback from Iraq, Prime Minister Marek Belka said Monday July 19, 2004, but not before the October elections. Poland plans to cut its troop levels in Iraq from about 2,400 to between 1,000 and 1,500 by January.
- On August 22, 2004, Poland said it wanted to pull its soldiers out of Iraq as soon as possible. The next Polish contingent to go to Iraq would be "smaller. Poland heads a multinational force of 6,500 soldiers from different countries administering Iraq south of Baghdad. Warsaw has already said it hopes to reduce the number of troops it has in the country from 2,500 to 1,500 soldiers in early 2005. Fourteen Poles have been killed in the country since the start of the US-led war -10 were soldiers and four were civilians. Polish public opinion remains overwhelmingly opposed to Poland's participation in the US-led multinational force in Iraq.
- Poland could withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of next year, Polish leaders said Monday October 4, 2004. This is the first time the key US ally has indicated a timeframe. President Aleksander Kwasniewski said no final decision has been made but Warsaw was considering the late 2005 deadline hoping that the January elections in Iraq will bring stability to the country. Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski argued that 2½ years in Iraq would be ''enough'' for the Poles.
- On October 15, 2004, Poland's prime minister said it will cut its troops in Iraq early next year and won't stay in the country "an hour longer" than needed. Poland has 2,500 troops in south-central Iraq and is a key US ally in the country. Following its withdrawal, Poland will become the second major European nation, after Spain, to pull out of Iraq.
- New US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has praised Poland's role in Iraq. Ms Rice made the remarks on February 5, 2005, during a stopover in Warsaw. She said the US understood there would be certain changes after the Iraqi elections, a reference to Polish plans to withdraw some troops later this month.
- Poland will keep its soldiers in Iraq at least through the end of the year, when the UN mandate for foreign troops expires, the defence minister, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, said Friday February 11, 2005. He added that Poland's previous commitment remains in force.
- Two Polish soldiers were slightly injured in Iraq on Thursday May 20, 2005, when a roadside bomb exploded as their convoy was returning to base in Hillah from Baghdad. Poland has lost 17 troops in roadside bomb explosions, armed attacks and accidents in Iraq since September 2003. Some 9,200 Polish soldiers have been involved so far in Iraq. Poland plans to end its mission December 31.
- The Polish prime minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was also in Iraq. Poland must soon decide if it extending the mission of its 1,400 troops. The previous government had decided to pull them out n January 2006 but the new one could decide otherwise.
- On December 29, 2005, Polish president Lech Kaczynski approved the extension of the Polish military mission in Iraq for another year. However the number of Polish soldiers will be reduced from 1,500 to 900 by March 2006.

- Poland's President Lech Kaczynski on Friday December 22, 2006, signed a government request that Polish troops stay in Iraq until the end of 2007. The order extends the presence of the 900 troops for an extra year. However, the mission can be terminated earlier if the security situation in Iraq allows this. A EU and NATO member, Poland's troop contingent in Iraq has been reduced from some 2,400 last year. Poland commands a multinational stabilization force in south-central Iraq.

- On April 21, 2007, Poland's defence ministry said a Polish soldier was killed and four injured when a roadside bomb hit their convoy Friday night in Diwaniyah. Twenty Polish soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the war began.

- Poland's October parliamentary election winner -Civic Platform (PO) leader Donald Tusk- said on Tuesday November 6, 2007, that he wants to make changes to the country's military mission in Iraq in 2008. Tusk added that there is growing conviction in international opinion that the entire mission in Iraq "must bring better effects, maybe at a lower cost, especially as far as the number of victims is concerned.". There are currently 900 Polish soldiers stationed in Iraq. Polish President Lech Kaczynski has approved a prolongation of the Polish mission in Iraq until the end of 2007.

- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Saturday December 15, 2007, he wants to end the country's Iraq deployment in October 2008 in line with his election pledge.
- Poland will withdraw all its troops from Iraq by mid-October, Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich said on Saturday June 7, 2008. Poland currently has some 900 military staff in Iraq, and 20 soldiers have died since 2003 when Poland deployed some 2,600 troops to Diwaniyah to back the U.S.-led military operation. Recent polls by Poland's research centre for public opinions have showed that about 81 percent of the Polish oppose to the country's military presence in Iraq.

- Poland turned over control of an area south of Baghdad to American troops on Saturday October 4, 2008, making it the latest in a string of countries to leave the dwindling US-led coalition.

- Polish troops on patrol in southern Afghanistan have found a newborn baby abandoned on the side of a road. The towel-wrapped girl was found Wednesday September 19, 2012, by soldiers who were checking the safety of a route near their Waghez military base.

. Qatar
- A British man, Jonathan Adams, has been killed and about 12 other people injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack in Qatar on March 20, 2005. The car bomb blast occurred at the Doha Players theatre outside the capital, Doha, near a British school. No group has rivendicated the attack but Qatar's interior ministry said the suspected bomber was Egyptian.


- Qatar on Tuesday April 3, 2012, rejected Iraq's request to hand over the nation's fugitive Sunni vice president to face terror charges in Baghdad, a decision that will likely further strain ties between Shiite-led Iraq and Sunni Gulf Arab states. On Monday, Iraq asked Qatar to extradite Tariq al-Hashemi, the top Sunni official in Iraq's Shiite-dominated government. Iraqi authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in December, triggering a political crisis in Baghdad and deepening the country's sectarian divide just days after the U.S. military withdrawal. Mr. Hashemi arrived in Qatar on Sunday. It is his first foreign trip since he fled to Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region in December to avoid arrest by Baghdad authorities who accused him of running death squads against Shiite pilgrims, government officials and security forces. He denies the charges, which he says are politically motivated.

- In Qatar, on Saturday June 1, 2013, an influential Sunni Muslim cleric whose TV show is watched by millions across the region, fanned the sectarian flames ignited by the Syria conflict and urged Sunnis everywhere to join the fight against Assad. ---

- On Tuesday April 5, 2016, a member of Qatar’s ruling family - an al-Thani- who was kidnapped in Iraq last year with 26 other Qataris has been freed, along with a Pakistani man who was travelling with them. About 100 unidentified armed men seized the group of Qatari hunters from a desert camp in southern Iraq near the Saudi border in December. At least nine members of the group managed to escape and cross into Kuwait. No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction of the hunters, who were seized in a largely desolate expanse of territory dominated by militias who have accused Doha of meddling in Iraq’s affairs.

- Stock markets recovered from an early slide in the wake of the weekend’s failure by oil producers to agree an output cut, when Saudi Arabia insisted Iran should take part but the latter refused. Oil producers failed to reach a consensus over limiting production at yesterday’s key meeting in Doha (Sunday April 17, 2016).

- Qatar said three of its soldiers have been killed while participating in Saudi-led military operations in Yemen. It was Qatar's biggest known loss of life in the conflict since its first reported ground deployment there last September. The deaths occurred on Monday September 12, 2016.

- Qatar is the latest Gulf country to mobilize their forces to help the Saudi-led Coalition after four of their own soldiers were killed Monday September 12, 2016 in Yemen. Approximately 1,000 Qatari soldiers, 200 armoured vehicles, and 30 Apache helicopters were deployed to Yemen to participate in the Saudi-led aggression. The troops are now heading to Yemen's Maareb province, to join the Saudi-led coalition. ---

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