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.

Chibok Girls 'Used By Boko Haram On Front Line'

Photo taken from video shows the missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok

While the world is expectant that Nigeria's secret deal with Boko Haram Islamists to free more than 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls would go ahead; Boko Haram has allegedly abducted dozens more girls in north-east Nigeria, damaging hopes of a ceasefire agreement with the government.

Boko Haram insurgents reportedly abducted 30 adolescent boys and girls in Mafa village, which is 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Maiduguri, Borno State over the weekend.

In another development, Boko Haram has been using kidnapped young women and girls on the front lines of its insurgency, according to a new report published today, October 27, 2014. Human Rights Watch made the claim as it outlined testimony from dozens of former hostages who documented physical and psychological abuse at the hands of the militants.

The dreaded Islamist Boko Haram sect

In the human rights report, one 19-year-old woman who was held in militant camps for three months last year said she was forced to participate in Boko Haram attacks.

"I was told to hold the bullets and lie in the grass while they fought. They came to me for extra bullets as the fight continued during the day," she said.

"When security forces arrived at the scene and began to shoot at us, I fell down in fright. The insurgents dragged me along on the ground as they fled back to camp."

In another operation, she said she was handed a knife to kill one of five captured civilian vigilantes brought to one of the camps and summarily executed.

"I was shaking with horror and couldn't do it. The camp leader's wife took the knife and killed him," she said.

A wave of attacks by female suicide bombers earlier this year prompted speculation that Boko Haram may have been using abducted women and young girls to carry out attacks.

But there has been no concrete evidence to prove whether the attackers were kidnap victims who were coerced or volunteers.

Some of the escaped kidnapped girls of the government secondary school in Chibok.

In July, a 10-year-old was detained in Katsina state, northwest Nigeria, and found to be strapped with explosives.

In all, 30 women and girls between April 2013 and April this year were interviewed, including 12 of the 57 who fled when the militants raided a school in Chibok, Borno state, taking away the 219 others.

The women, who were held from between two days to three months, were seized from their homes and villages, while working on the land, fetching water or at school.

They described how they were held in eight different camps thought to be in the vast Sambisa Forest area of Borno and the Gwoza hills, which separates Nigeria from Cameroon.

Human Rights Watch said more than 500 women and girls have been abducted since the start of the insurgency in 2009, although other estimates put the figure in the high hundreds.