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At least 40 people have been killed in Nigeria in Christmas Day bomb attacks, including some on churches during services.
A purported spokesman for Islamist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the bombing of a church outside the capital Abuja and other violence that has stoked fear and anger in Africa’s most populous nation.
At least 61 people have been killed during several days of fighting in northeast Nigeria between security forces and a radical Muslim sect responsible for a series of increasingly bloody attacks in Africa’s most populous nation, authorities said Saturday.
The fighting between suspected members of the sect known as Boko Haram and a joint task force of police and military began Thursday in Borno and Yobe states in Nigeria’s arid northeast corner bordering Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The fighting left residents cowering in their homes amid gunfire and explosions.
A security official told The Express Tribune that at around 5am, a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a security installation. “The target of the attack was the Tochi Scouts,” he said while confirming five deaths and 18 injuries.
However, local sources estimated that around seven dead bodies were recovered from the debris.
The Tochi Scouts are paramilitary troops of the Frontier Corps (FC) deployed mainly in North Waziristan.
Suicide bombers blew up vehicles at two security service bases in the Syrian capital on Friday, state television reported while pointing the finger of blame at al-Qaeda.
At least 40 people were killed and 100 others wounded in the twin bomb attacks, Reuters reported, adding that most of those killed were civilians.
“Two attacks carried out by suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives targeted bases of state security and another branch of the security services,” the television said, after AFP correspondents heard two large explosions.
Rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region have begun moving towards the capital Khartoum, their spokesman said Thursday, more than three years after they made an unprecedented attack on the capital.
“Now our troops are moving from Darfur in an easterly direction towards the capital Khartoum,” Gibril Adam Bilal, of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), told AFP from London.
“Our main fight with this government has already started.”
Sudan’s army spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.
Bilal said JEM had reached En Nahud, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of Darfur in North Kordofan state, on a mission to change the regime led by President Omar al-Bashir.
Five suspected rebels and two civilians died in the clashes, the army says.
The BBC’s Mame Campbell Toure in Dakar says the recent upsurge in fighting has shocked people, as it follows a long period of calm.
The Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC) has been fighting for the region’s independence since 1982.
A peace deal was signed with the largest rebel faction in 2004 and the level of violence had subsided.
Many had expected that after the signing of the Arab monitor protocol by Damascus, there will be a decline in the intensity of the regime’s killing machine.
However, that did not happen. In the past two days, more than 200 people were killed, according to figures provided by human rights organizations.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights conveyed that more than 80 civilians were killed Tuesday afternoon after they were shot dead by Syrian security forces in different parts of the country.