Boko Haram kills 44 people in Nigeria.

Boko Haram kills 44 people in Nigeria.

Nigeria | 01 Sep 2013 :: At least 44 people were killed by Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in North-eastern Nigeria, local security officials said late on Saturday.

The insurgents ambushed and killed 24 members of the civilian Joint Task Force in Monguno, a town in Borno State, on Friday.

The JTF has been set up to assist Nigeria’s military in the fight against the terrorist group.

An additional 36 JTF members were missing after the attack, according to local residents.

The insurgents then moved to the nearby towns of Damboa and Nganza, where they reportedly killed another 20 civilians.

Borno is one of three northern states that the government placed under emergency regulations in May to curb attacks by Boko Haram.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful”, has been active in the Muslim North of the West African country, regularly carrying out attacks aimed primarily at Christians.

Since 2009, about 1,500 people have been killed in the violence.(Courtesy:The Hindu)

Gunmen kill 30 in Nigeria school attack.

A file screengrab taken from a video released
 on You Tube on April 12, 2012 apparently shows Boko
 Haram leader Abubakar Shekau (C) sitting flanked
 by militants.— Photo by AFP

POTISKUM |AP | 06 Jul 2013 ::  Militants attacked a boarding school before dawn Saturday, dousing a dormitory in fuel and lighting it ablaze as students slept, survivors said.

At least 30 people were killed in the deadliest attack yet on schools in Nigeria's embattled northeast.

Authorities blamed the violence on Boko Haram, a radical group whose name means ''Western education is sacrilege.''

The militants have been behind a series of recent attacks on schools in the region, including one in which gunmen opened fire on children taking exams in a classroom.

''We were sleeping when we heard gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me,'' Musa Hassan, 15, told The Associated Press of the assault on Government Secondary School in Mamudo village in Yobe state.

He put his arm up in defense, and suffered a gunshot that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he uses to write. His life was spared when the militants moved on after shooting him.

Hassan recalled how the gunmen came armed with jerry cans of fuel that they used to torch the school's administrative block and one of the dormitories.

''They burned the children alive,'' he said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.

He and teachers at the morgue said dozens of children from the 1,200-student school escaped into the bush but have not been seen since.

On Saturday, at the morgue of Potiskum General Hospital, a few miles kilometers from the scene of the attack, parents screamed in anguish as they attempted to identify the victims, many charred beyond recognition.

Some parents do not know if their children survived or died.

Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.

''The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers,'' he said as he wept over the two corpses. He said he is withdrawing his three remaining sons from another school.(Courtesy:Dawn)Read More>>>

Nigeria says 11 killed in Islamist sect school attack.

Sunday's attack will raise fears that, as with past surges, a month-long offensive by government troops has merely pushed militants into hiding or across borders to Niger, Chad and Cameroon, where they can regroup and prepare new attacks.

"Two teachers and two insurgents were killed when Boko Haram terrorists attacked the Government Secondary School ... Also seven innocent students lost their lives," Eli Lazarus, military spokesman in Yobe state, said in a statement.

Boko Haram, which roughly translates as "Western education is sinful", has attacked several schools in the past. It was not clear how two of the attackers were killed.

Vigilante groups armed with machetes and sticks have joined the effort to oust Islamist insurgents in the northeast, prompting concerns by some residents that this will lead to a breakdown in law and order.

The military has cautiously welcomed the support, while warning it must not lead to witch-hunts or the settling of scores.

Lazarus said three soldiers were critically wounded during a separate attack by Boko Haram targeting the military in Damaturu, and three insurgents had been arrested.

Nigerian forces say their offensive has enabled them to wrest back control of the country's remote northeast from Boko Haram. They say they have destroyed key bases and arrested more than 150 suspected insurgents in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa -- all covered by a state of emergency declared by President Goodluck Jonathan last month.

Some Nigerians saw the push as long overdue. But rights groups and aid agencies fear the longer it goes on, the more the region's vulnerable local population, which includes some of the poorest people on earth, will suffer.

The offensive has forced more than 6,000 refugees - mostly women, children and the elderly - to flee to neighbouring Niger, the U.N. refugee agency said last week.(Courtesy:REUTERS)