Boko Haram on the rampage, sets 300 vehicles ablaze

About 300 vehicles were yesterday set ablaze in
various locations of Maiduguri, the Borno State
capital, by persons suspected to be members of
the Boko Haram sect.
The latest attack came barely eight hours after 50
gunmen believed to be members of the sect
attacked Damboa Divisional Police Station and a
military post, killing a policeman and 11 other
residents in Damboa local council area, in the
early hours of Friday.
The gunmen who perpetrated the Damboa
attacks, after fleeing, afterwards re-mobilised and
returned to the community, hunting down their
targets.
Yesterday’s gunmen, according to a top security
source in Maiduguri, used Improvised Explosive
Devices (IEDs) and arrived in nine Golf
Volkswagen vehicles and rode on motorcycles.
The gunmen who stormed the area at dawn,
descended Damboa Divisional Police Station,
houses and shops which they set ablaze after
preponderance of gun attacks.
Sources said they later mobilised more of their
men who burned down vehicles at homes and at
mechanics’ workshops. Sources revealed that no
fewer than 300 vehicles were set on fire. Damboa
is 87 kilometres south of Maiduguri, and a
flashpoint of the Boko Haram sect.
The community had witnessed series of attacks
through exchange of gunfire and bombings in
recent past. The latest attack came only four days
after the 187-kilometre Maiduguri- Damboa
federal road which was closed down since the
declaration of state of emergency on May 14 was
re-opened to motorists and villagers by the Joint
Task Force (JTF) in Borno State.
A top military officer of the Special Operation
Forces (SMOF) confirmed the incident yesterday in
Maiduguri, stating, “More soldiers have been
dispatched to the affected area to confront the
Boko Haram insurgents. Intelligence report also
indicated that they fled from Damboa towards the
bush leading to parts of Yobe and Gombe states.
For sure, they will not escape,” he said.
He said the assailants could have fled from the
Sambisa Games Reserve Forests, after the Special
Operation Forces destroyed the Boko Haram
training camp and hideouts in May this year.
A resident of Damboa, Mallam Abu Zarami who
fled to Maiduguri because of the attacks and
killings, said, “The gunmen have also destroyed
several business premises and shops in Damboa;
even though they faced stiff resistance from
members of the Borno Vigilance Youth Groups
(BVYG) who also killed one of the insurgents,
injuring many of them and capturing one alive.”
Zarami said, the rate at which some suspected
Boko Haram sect members were unleashing terror
in some communities around the offshore of
Sambisa Game Reserve Forests, particularly the
last week deadly attack in Konduga, Mafa, Marte,
Kirenuwa, Kala Balge, Bama and Damboa council
areas which led to the death of over hundred
civilians posed a serious question as to “whether it
is true that men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) have
truly, really invaded and successfully raided the
Boko Haram camps in the area as they claimed in
their report to the public, or not.
“I can certainly tell you that the vigilance youths
really tried and defied the superior fire-power of
the gunmen; because they confronted them
squarely, which even led to the minimal number
of the casualties recorded.” Speaking on the
casualties, a top politician and close associate of
Governor Kashim Shettima from Damboa who did
not want his name mentioned, said, “My people in
Damboa are under siege, as the gunmen have
destroyed many lives and property during the
attack.”
He said the gunmen had not only been attacking
police stations and military formations, since
2011, but 18 local hunters were also killed in April
at a market square for allegedly buying and selling
pork.
On how the gunmen attacked Damboa, the
politician said, “the fact was that the insurgents
speak Arabic fluently, while attacking the police
station, military posts and other public places with
sophisticated weapons and IEDs that claimed over
dozen lives, including a policeman at the station
at dawn on Friday.
“My worry now is that we are no longer safe
because, how can a group of terrorists attack a
local government council, killing many people,
just to re-mobilise and after some hours, came
again, launched a fresh and successful attack by
burning vehicles and residential houses without
being confronted by the security agencies
deployed in the area?” He asked rhetorically.
Owing to lack of telecommunication network
which has been shut down for the past three
months, the JTF spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel
Sagir Musa, and the Police Public Relations Officer,
Gideon Jubrin, a Deputy Superintendent of Police,
could not be reached for confirmation.