Nigeria Hires Foreign Mercenaries To Take On Boko Haram

The presence of mercenaries from South Africa and the former Soviet Union adds to the broad array of forces lining up against Boko Haram

Nigeria has brought in hundreds of mercenaries from South Africa and the former Soviet Union to give its offensive against Boko Haram a shot in the arm before a March 28 election, according to regional security, defence and diplomatic sources.

Rumours about the use of foreign "soldiers of fortune" against the Islamist militant group gained substance this month when pictures surfaced on Twitter showing armoured vehicles rumbling along a street in what was said to be Maiduguri, the regional capital of Nigeria's Boko Haram-hit northeast.

In one photo that appeared on Twitter on March 6, a white man in a khaki tee-shirt and body armour is shown beside a heavy-calibre machine gun on top of one of the sand-coloured vehicles as the column drives through the streets at dusk.

A Reuters reporter with knowledge of Maiduguri was able to verify the location of the photo as the Bama road, leading southeast out of the city, near the University of Maiduguri.

Election campaign posters of Borno state governor Kashim Shettima hanging from street lights indicate it was taken recently. The lights, notable for their ornate ironwork, were only installed last year.

 

Foreign Mercenaries were involved in the deployment, which comes after the six-week postponement of elections in mid-February due to the threat from Boko Haram

In confirming the presence of hundreds of foreign military contractors on the ground, including recently in the city of Maiduguri, security and diplomatic sources put the total much higher than the hundred or so previously reported.

Nigerian government spokesman Mike Omeri declined to comment, referring questions to military spokesman Chris Olukolade, who also declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.

In an interview with Voice of America late on Wednesday, President Goodluck Jonathan said two companies were providing "trainers and technicians" to help Nigerian forces. He did not name the firms, or the nationalities, or give numbers.

But a West African security source and a South African defence source said the foreign troops were linked to the bosses of former South African private military firm Executive Outcomes.

 

Several hundred foreigners were involved in running major offensive operations against Boko Haram

Executive Outcomes was best-known for its involvement in Angola's 1975-2002 civil war and against Revolutionary United Front rebels in an internal conflict in Sierra Leone in 1995. It disbanded in 1998, under pressure from the post-apartheid government in Pretoria to curtail mercenary activities.

The West African security source said several hundred foreigners were involved in running major offensive operations against Boko Haram, and were being paid around $400 a day in cash.

Their impact on the fighting so far could not be quantified, but the general run of the campaign has seen the tide turn somewhat against Boko Haram in recent weeks.

©Reuters

Are Female Bombers “Chibok Girls”?

Still Missing! 219 Chibok school girls, 243 days of abduction, 13 days to Christmas, 19 to new year

In its five-year campaign to establish a caliphate in Nigeria, extremist group Boko Haram has repeatedly used suicide bombers against civilians and the military. But analysts say its recent use of female suicide bombers in strikes across the country show its growing ambition.

On Wednesday, 10 December 2014, at least four people have been killed and seven injured in a double attack by female suicide bombers near a market in Kano, northern Nigeria.

Shocking and striking resemblance between a dead female suicide bomber and one of the Chibok girls.

Last month more than 100 people died in a gun and bomb attack during prayers at one of the biggest mosques in Kano. Kano state police commissioner Adenrele Shinaba said the blast at the Kantin Kwari market in Kano city was "a twin suicide bombing carried out by two young girls in hijab".

"They came by the market and asked to be directed to a public convenience. The bombs detonated, killing them and four others," he told AFP. At least seven others were injured, he added.

The leader of the market traders union, Abdullahi Abubakar, said the blasts hit a parking area rather than the main market.

He estimated that the attackers were in their late teens and said they were accompanied by a man who disappeared after the girls blew themselves up.

Policemen stand near damaged vehicles in Sabon Gari, Kano May 19, 2014 where a suicide car bomber killed five people

 Some 2,000 have died in attacks blamed on the Islamists so far this year taking the tally over 13,000 since 2009.

The bombing of a market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri last month bore all the hallmarks of an attack by Boko Haram. The group has struck Maiduguri repeatedly. But this bombing, which killed more than 30 people, was different: the two bombers were women.

Boko Haram has recently been sending women to carry out suicide bombings across Nigeria, particularly in the northeast. No one is quite sure why they have started using women.

There has been speculation some bombers might be drawn from the ranks of more than 200 schoolgirls the group kidnapped on April 14 from the northeastern town of Chibok.

Nigerian police arrested a 13-year-old girl wearing an explosives-packed vest in the northern city of Kano 

On Thursday, December 11, 2014, Nigerian police arrested a 13-year-old girl wearing an explosives-packed vest in the northern city of Kano hours after an attack by two female suicide bombers at the textile market.

The girl turned up at a clinic on the outskirts of Kano hours after a double bombing at the ever-busy market in the city.

“The people there called the attention of security personnel who found explosives primed for a suicide attack on her,” said the security source, who requested anonymity, in an account confirmed by a nurse at the clinic.

 

GRAPHIC! The head of the Azare female bomber on display by protesters

Diary of recent female bombers in Nigeria:

·      *November 12, 2014: A female suicide bomber injured four people at the Federal College of Education in Kontagora, Niger state before reaching her target.

·       *November 16, 2014: A female suicide bomber blew herself up, killing at least a dozen people in a cellphone market in Azare, a town in Nigeria's Bauchi State.