NIGERIAN TROOPS SHOT DEAD 30 DURING BOKO HARAM RAIDS

November 2, 2012 – 21:44 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Nigerian troops shot dead at least 30 people during
raids in the northeast city of Maiduguri, bastion of the radical
Islamist sect Boko Haram, witnesses and hospital staff said on Friday,
Nov 2, according to Reuters.

Boko Haram says it wants to create an Islamic state in Nigeria and
its fighters have killed hundreds in bomb and gun attacks targeting
security forces, politicians and civilians since launching an uprising
in 2009. The sect has become the top security threat to Africa’s
biggest energy-producing state.

Three witnesses said that soldiers from the Joint Task Force (JTF)
raided several neighborhoods in Maiduguri late on Thursday and arrested
or shot dead dozens of people.

“More than 30 bodies were brought in by the JTF yesterday and most of
them were young men,” a nurse at one Maiduguri hospital Yagana Bukar
told Reuters. The military spokesman in Maiduguri did not respond to
requests for comment.

“Yesterday around the Gambaru area, soldiers raided places with an
insider who pointed to suspected terrorists and they just killed some
of them on the spot and others were taken away,” a civil servant who
saw the attacks told Reuters, asking not to be named. He said he saw
more than 40 dead bodies.

A recent military crackdown has reduced the more deadly Boko Haram
attacks seen early this year, although violence in Maiduguri and the
rest of northeast Borno state is still an almost daily occurrence.

Western governments are concerned about Boko Haram linking up with
other militant groups in the region, including al Qaeda’s north
African wing.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress