26 killed, five aircraft razed as Boko Haram attacks Maiduguri

The Islamic terror group Boko Haram has again shown it still possesses the strength to inflict maximum pains on the innocent populace despite the seven months old emergency rule in the northeast Nigeria.

Hundreds of the  Islamic militants in trucks and a stolen armored personnel carrier attacked an air force base and international airport on the outskirts of Maiduguri before dawn Monday.

The attack described by officials and witnesses as one of the most by the group lead to  the death of two military personnel, 24 insurgents, the destruction of three decommissioned military aircraft, two helicopters and property worth millions of naira, which were burnt during the onslaught.

As a result of the attack, , military authorities and the Borno State Government slammed a 24-hour curfew on the city and its environs.

A military official who was at the base told AFP that he saw three aircraft and several vehicles hit in the attack.

The state government quickly ordered everyone to stay home and extended a night-time curfew to 24 hours in Maiduguri, the city near the air base which is also the birthplace of the extremist Boko Haram movement.

The militants also attacked Maiduguri International Airport, the official said, and airlines reported it has been closed. International flights to Maiduguri stopped months ago but domestic flights had continued.

Explosions and automatic gunfire could be heard across the northeastern city from around 2:30 a.m. when the insurgents launched the attack with screams of “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.”

Government and military officials said scores of people may be dead. Reporters saw military ambulances ferrying bodies to the hospital morgue.

Civilians living around the military base, which is off a main road, said they saw bodies with slit throats and corpses of insurgents burning in vehicles.

The witnesses and officials spoke only on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The attack comes a week after the military bombarded forest hideouts of the Boko Haram terrorist network near the border with Cameroon with air strikes and ground assaults.

One military officer put the number of attackers at around 500. It was unclear how such a large convoy could move undetected at night in an area under curfew, though the insurgents have seized many military vehicles and arms at the scenes of other attacks and witnesses have said they sometimes wear the same military fatigues as the Nigerian army.

“I saw two air force helicopters burnt while in the whole of the 79 Composite Group (of the Nigerian Air Force) few buildings are still standing. Most of the structures have been attacked and destroyed,” said one man, who lives nearby, of Monday’s attacks.

“At the 33 Artillery (battalion of the Nigerian Army), the terrorists have destroyed the barracks and took away an armoured (personnel) carrier but left it along the highway.

“We heard women and children in the barracks crying and wailing. At the gate, I saw some vehicles destroyed and the checkpoint there in shreds,” said the man, a local government official, who asked to remain anonymous.

The man, who said he watched the attacks unfurl with his wife from his house, added that two people had been shot dead.

There was no immediate confirmation of fatalities or other casualties from the authorities.

“Frankly speaking, if the insurgents had wanted, they could have killed all of us… because they came in large numbers… some with explosives, some with rocket-propelled grenades and some with AK-47 rifles,” he added.

Nigeria’s government imposed a state of emergency in Borno and two other northeast states in May, cutting phone links in a move designed to block militants from coordinating attacks.

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Kashim Ibrahim Way in the centre of Maiduguri is free from traffic after the military imposed a 24-hour curfew.

Details of the ongoing conflict have as a result been difficult to verify.

The latest violence began at around 3:00 am (0200 GMT) and included bomb and gun attacks, said an AFP correspondent in the city, where Boko Haram was founded more than 10 years ago.

“They entered Maiduguri from the bush, chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is great),” said one Nigerian intelligence officer, adding that some insurgents had been detained, without specifying numbers.

Ambulances were seen moving out of the air force base and the adjoining Ngomari neighbourhood, according to the correspondent. Roads in the city were deserted and the sound of sirens from military vehicles could be heard, he added.

The insurgents had also ambushed military checkpoints on the outskirts of the city, while shops and petrol stations were also said to have been set on fire, local residents said.

State government secretary Baba Ahmed Jidda called for calm, disclosing that only emergency service vehicles were allowed to move during the curfew, which would be lifted “as soon as the situation improves”.

Monday’s attacks came after suspected Boko Haram militants killed 24 people in two separate strikes in Borno state last week and following a military pledge to tighten security in border regions due to fears of Christmas and New Year attacks.

Boko Haram, whose name translates from the Hausa language of northern Nigeria as “Western education is sin”, wants to impose a strict form of Islamic law or sharia in the region and has been blamed for thousands of deaths since 2009.

President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in May in three states, acknowledging the insurgents had seized control of many towns and villages, and flooded the area with security forces.

The military quickly forced the militants out of urban centers but have appeared unable to halt attacks on soft targets like schools, remote villages and major highways where they set up impromptu roadblocks.

Last week, army spokesmen said troops are increasing security and deploying to border villages amid fears of attacks over the Christmas holidays and that the insurgency has spread to neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

Boko Haram militants have claimed last month’s kidnapping of a French priest in northern Cameroon, who had given refuge to Nigerian Christian refugees from the insurgency.

Hundreds of residents have fled Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, according to witnesses. Residents at the Borno state border with Adamawa state said more than 1,000 people, mainly women children and the elderly, are at the state border where they appear to feel safer.

The Islamic extremist uprising began in 2009 , has killed thousands and threatens the security and cohesion of Africa’s biggest oil producer and its most populous nation, with more than 160 million people, divided between the mainly Christian south and the predominantly Muslim north.

The extremists say they want to impose Islamic rule across all Nigeria.

In one of the group’s highest-profile attacks, a Boko Haram member detonated a car bomb at the United Nations main offices in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on Aug. 26, 2011, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100 others. The United States last month designated Boko Haram a terrorist organization.