Nigerian troops repel Boko Haram attack on Maiduguri

Islamists from Boko Haram charged Maiduguri from several different directions on Sunday, triggering heavy fighting with the government forces reinforced by local vigilantes.

A senior army officer said the Boko Haram fighters were "everywhere," attacking from all four roads leading to the populous city. Another officer said hundreds of insurgents, as many as 500, were killed before they took flight Sunday and many weapons were recovered including artillery guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Both officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give information to reporters.

Some civilians in the besieged city were killed by stray grenades and bombs dropped from a Nigerian Air Force fighter jet, witnesses said, and thousands of people fled the city during the battle.

Many homes were also hit by bombs, including one in the Zannari neighborhood that killed seven civilians, according to neighbors who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from the military.

Another 'Islamic State'?

The population of Maiduguri is estimated at between 1.2 million and two million people, with another 200.000 refugees, and it is one the last northern towns still under government control.

The Muslim extremists from Boko Haram have long been trying to take control of Maiduguri, which is the birthplace of their insurgency, planning to make it a capital of their own "Islamic state."

Defeats and threats

In August, Boko Haram declared an Islamic caliphate and is currently controlling some 130 towns and villages. The extremist group has killed thousands of people, many of them civilians, and kidnapped hundreds more, threatening Nigeria and its neighbors.

Some 10,000 people lost their lives in the uprising last year, according to the US think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. Recently, the Islamist group has suffered a string of defeats, especially in a successful offensive by Chadian forces, under the control of the African Union.

In addition, leaders of African countries authorized the formation of an international force of 7,500 soldiers to fight Boko Haram in an African Union summit on Saturday.

Boko Haram warned against this move and threatened to attack Niger, if it sends its troops, just as it has attacked Cameroon, according to a message posted Sunday by the SITE intelligence monitoring service.

The latest attack on Maiduguri comes two weeks before a presidential election in Nigeria, scheduled for February 14. Boko Haram rejects democracy as a product of Western corruption.

dj/bk (AP, AFP, Reuters)