Military hunts Boko Haram after daring barracks attack

KANO – Nigeria's military has surrounded a village in the
northeast to flush out Islamist rebels who fled there after
reportedly snatching soldiers' wives and children during a
daring attack on an army barracks nearby, witnesses told AFP
Saturday.

Suspected Boko Haram fighters stormed the barracks in the
town of Bama early on Friday, spraying it with bullets before
torching the compound.

Several Bama residents told AFP the insurgents also abducted
several of the soldiers' wives and children during the attack.
Asked about those details, northeastern military spokesman
Mohammed Dole refered AFP to Nigeria's defence headquarters.

Defence spokesman Chris Olukolade could not be reached for
comment.

Bama residents said the Boko Haram gunmen fled to the
nearby village of Abbaram after the attack, where the military
sent hundreds of troops on Saturday.

"The soldiers have besieged the village and more troops are
deploying in hundreds," said Ibrahim Idris.

"Nothing is happening yet but from the huge number of troops
deploying and the large number of Boko Haram in the village
one can imagine what may happen".

Karim Bunu, who also lives in Bama, described Abbaram as a
village of some 250 people.

"We are afraid of what will happen to the people of Abbaram
because whichever way one looks at it, they are facing a
serious security threat," he told AFP.

A third resident, who requested anonymity, said the Islamists
were holding in Abbaram the "women and children of
soldiers," who had been kidnapped during the Friday attack,
in an account supported by both Idris and Bunu.

In November, Human Rights Watch reported that Boko
Haram has increasingly used kidnappings as a tactic,
abducting scores of women and children this year.

After staging an attack on the military, the insurgents typically
flee to far away camps to evade pursuing troops, but their
escape was slowed on Friday by fighter jets which dropped
bombs on the major routes leading out of Bama, according to
the military and witnesses.

"I counted 18 burnt all-terrain vans belonging to the Boko
Haram gunmen pulverised by military jets," said the unnamed
resident, who identified himself as a member of a military-
backed vigilante force which has formed in the northeast to
fight the insurgents.

Air force jets continued to fly over the region on Saturday,
residents said.

The Bama attack was the second major Islamist assault on the
army this month, casting further doubt on official claims that
the rebels have been weakened by a seven-month-old military
offensive in the northeast.

Via: Vanguard/ (AFP)