Bloody Boko Haram Insurgency Continues with Suicide Attacks, Raids, Kidnappings

Boko Haram’s bloody uprising in Nigeria shows no sign of abating, as demonstrated by a recent spate of renewed violence throughout the country over the weekend.

A female suicide bomber blew herself up on Monday at a gas station in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city, killing three people. It is the third bombing attack in Kano in recent days, and the second by a female suicide bomber in the last 48 hours.

On Sunday, a 15-year-old female suicide bomber detonated a bomb near a university, reportedly in an attempt to target police. No one else was killed in the attack, although at least five officers were injured.

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Also on Sunday, another militant threw explosives at a Catholic church, killing at least five people and wounding eight, and as many as 200 militants carried out a cross-border raid into neighboring Cameroon, killing at least three people and kidnapping the wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister.

“I can confirm that the home of Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali in Kolofata came under a savage attack from Boko Haram militants,” government spokesman Issa Tchiroma, told Reuters. “They unfortunately took away his wife.” A local religious leader was also kidnapped in another attack.

Although Boko Haram has not yet taken responsibility, government officials in both Nigeria and Cameroon have blamed the group. Boko Haram militants have recently increased cross-border incursions into Cameroon, prompting the Cameroonian military to deploy troops to the northern border. They have so far been unsuccessful in stemming the tide of violence that has spread from Nigeria. This is the third Boko Haram attack in Cameroon since Friday.

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Tchiroma told reporters on Sunday that the Cameroonian army had taken the town of Kolofata back under control from Boko Haram.

The Islamist group has been carrying out a violent insurgency in Nigeria since 2009, mostly concentrating violent attacks in the northeast of the country.

In another attack on Sunday, Boko Haram militants killed as many as 32 people in two villages in the northeastern state of Borno, according to eyewitness reports. These types of attacks have become tragically common, especially in Borno, where many villages in the region are now controlled by the group or have been destroyed.

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Although the group’s stated goal is to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in the northeast of Nigeria, it appears to be in violent opposition to anything and everything it sees as different from itself, and is committed to using brutality in its campaign. This includes fighting the Nigerian government, Christianity, and Western education.

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