MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

The Guardian – “Co-ordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns have killed at least 42 people in north-east Nigeria, according to authorities, the latest in a string of increasingly bloody incidents threatening peace in Africa‘s most populous nation.

Multiple locations were struck in Bama in Nigeria’s Borno state, where shootings and bombings have been rife since an insurgency began there in 2010.

Fighters raided a federal prison during the assault, killing 14 guards and freeing 105 inmates, officials said.

Details of the attack remain unclear, although military spokesman Lt Col Sagir Musa said about 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria’s army. Musa said 10 insurgents and two soldiers died in the attack.

‘They came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers but [we] were able to detect them,’ he said.

The attackers also razed a police station, a police barracks, magistrate’s court and local government offices, the spokesman said.

At least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in those attacks, said Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar. He said officers killed three insurgents during the fighting.

Calls rang unanswered or would not connect on Tuesday night to those living in Bama, a town 40 miles (65km) south-east of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. In attacks in the region by Islamic extremists, phone towers have been bombed and burned to the ground, making communication even more difficult for security officials and civilians as well. At least 17 people died in an attack in Bama in late April.

Much of the violence has been blamed on the extremist network known as Boko Haram, which translates as ‘western education is sacrilege’ in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s north. The group has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict sharia law across the multi-ethnic nation of more than 160 million people.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: ‘Proud Soldiers of Allah’ Vows to Take Down Government and Destroy Christianity, ‘We Will Devour You … Our Joy Is To Die In Jihad’ – “Islamist sect, Boko Haram, has threatened to bring down the Federal Government led by President Goodluck Jonathan within three months. Purported leader of the sect said this in his second video posted on the Internet yesterday. The 14 minutes, two seconds video of Abubakar Shekau seen on YouTube was in response to Jonathan’s comments while in South Korea, about two weeks ago, that the Boko Haram phenomenon would be under control by the middle of this year.” Read more.