Attacks by Boko Haram militants have left more than 20 people dead and as many as 90 others wounded in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri in the past 24 hours, according to residents and Nigerian officials.
Sunday evening, Nigerian troops spotted a group of armed Boko Haram fighters trying to cross a trench to get into the Jiddari Polo area of the city and opened fire on them, said Babakura Kolo, a vigilante assisting the military in fighting Boko Haram.
Maiduguri has been fortified with trenches to prevent infiltration by Boko Haram.
“Some of the insurgents managed to cross into Jiddari Polo and engaged soldiers in battles with guns and explosives,” said Usman Bala, another vigilante assisting the military.
Resident Madu Goni said the fighting lasted for almost two hours.
“This forced us to abandon our homes in fear,” Goni said.
At least 21 people died and 91 were wounded in the Sunday evening fighting, according to Mohammed Kanar, head of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Hours later, on Monday morning, a teenage female suicide bomber killed one person and wounded seven others in an attack on a checkpoint in the Maiduguri suburb of Kushari, authorities said.
“The suicide bomber blended with the crowd and detonated her explosives,” explained a Kushari resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of Boko Haram reprisals.
Two other residents corroborated his account.
President: Nigeria has won war against Boko Haram
The attacks came less than a week after President Muhammadu Buhari said in an interview with the BBC that Nigeria had “technically” won the war against Boko Haram, claiming that the Islamic militant group was no longer capable of launching “conventional, articulated attacks” in towns and population centers.
“Boko Haram as an organized fighting force, I assure you that we have dealt with them,” Buhari said.
The attacks in Maiduguri also come in the face of the President’s December 31 deadline to defeat the Islamist group. Buhari had given his military chiefs a three-month deadline to put down Boko Haram. Ending the group’s insurgency was the backbone of the former military ruler’s presidential campaign earlier this year.
A statement from the Nigerian military about the Sunday night fighting framed the situation in a different light, saying that “contrary to earlier media reports and rumors flying around,” vigilant military forces intercepted two suspected suicide bombers outside Maiduguri. Those suspects apparently told the military that other suicide bombers were on the way, so “the troops laid ambush on the terrorists’ suspected routes … and eliminated them.
“The suicide bombers were intercepted in three different locations approaching the city,” said the statement from Col. Mustapha Anka.
Allegiance to ISIS
In March, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and later began calling itself the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP). Factions in the north of the Sahara and Somalia-based Al-Shabaab have also pledged allegiance to ISIS.
“For ISIS, declaring a ‘province’ in Africa’s most populous country will further perceptions it is on course to achieve its raison d’etre — creating a unified Islamic State spanning the Muslim world,” said R24 security expert Ryan Cummings.
“Accepting Boko Haram as an ideological proxy also gives (ISIS) an important foothold in a region where prevailing social, political and economic conditions are conducive to religious radicalization,” Cummings added.
Thousands have been killed and 1.5 million people displaced since the Boko Haram insurgency began. A recent report named Boko Haram the deadliest terror group in the world.
