KANO: Four west African states have launched a major offensive against the Boko Haram militant group in Nigeria, the military said on Tuesday.
Soldiers from Nigeria and the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger are targeting a Boko Haram faction led by Abubakar Shekau in the Sambisa Forest, and another led by Mamman Nur, on and around Lake Chad.
Both locations are in Borno state, northeast Nigeria.
According to the Nigerian military, scores of militants have been killed and hundreds of others have been forced to surrender in recent days.
Top brass in Abuja have claimed that Nur had been injured and one of his wives killed in an aerial bombardment.
Shekau was “a spent horse, waiting for his Waterloo,” army spokesman Brig. Gen. Sani Usman said on Monday.
On Tuesday, he said the operation — codenamed “Deep Punch 2” — had been making “tremendous progress.”
But he said four soldiers had “paid the supreme price” and nine others were wounded by a suicide car bomb attack against a military vehicle near Shekau’s camp on Monday.
Separate senior military and civilian militia sources spoken to by AFP gave a higher death toll of 10.
Two Cameroon security sources meanwhile said two of its troops had been killed in the Sambisa Forest, although it was not clear if they were among those mentioned by Usman.
Boko Haram has been fighting to establish a hard-line Islamic state in northeast Nigeria since 2009. The violence has killed at least 20,000 and displaced more than 2.6 million.
In 2015, the four neighbors joined forces with Nigeria’s tiny western neighbor, Benin, to set up a Multi-National Joint Task Force, designed seize back territory lost to the militants.
Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, a former military general who is expected to seek a second term next year, was elected in 2015 on a promise to defeat the insurgents.
He and military commanders have repeatedly insisted Daesh affiliate is a spent force but regular attacks still occur in the remote region.
The Nur faction, which goes by the name Daesh West Africa Province, last Friday claimed a late December raid on a Nigerian military base that killed nine soldiers.
Shekau appeared in a new video message last Tuesday and claimed a series of recent attacks in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri and the border towns of Gamboru and Damboa.
Shekau, Boko Haram’s leader since 2009, pledged allegiance to Daesh in 2015, just as the military counter-insurgency began to make gains.
But he was enraged in August 2016 when Daesh gave its backing to the faction led by Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi, the son of Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf.
Nur — Shekau’s former right-hand man and the mastermind of the 2011 UN office bombing in Abuja — is seen as the faction’s de-facto leader and Al-Barnawi the figurehead.
The operations against Shekau are concentrated on his hideout in the Parisu area of Borno, according to military and civilian militia sources.
One militia leader said the suicide car bomb attack that killed the troops happened at Lagara village, where soldiers had been forced to stop because of Boko Haram land mines.
“There are mines all over the marshland leading to the Shekau camp, which makes it difficult for troops to get to the camp,” he said.
“Once the soldiers cross the river, they are in Parisu. Shekau is within their grasp this time because he is holed up.”
Shekau, whom the authorities have claimed to have killed on a number of occasions, has been surrounded and managed to escape before.
In December 2016, he evaded troops who overran his Camp Zairo enclave in the Sambisa Forest.
The military claims to have liberated the former game reserve but Boko Haram is now said to be back in the camp.
Nur, who is believed to have links with Al-Qaeda affiliates in north Africa, was said to have been injured in an air raid on a militant camp on Tumbin Kare island, on Lake Chad.
He had moved there from his headquarters in Tumbin Gini last week, according to the militia leader.
“Mamman Nur never stayed in one particular location. He moved around the islands under his control to avoid detection,” he added. “He was not lucky this time.”
Security agencies have warned the public about Barnawi/Nur fighters “attempting to melt into other communities” in the northern states of Kano, Yobe and Jigawa.
“The concern is that the terrorists would take cover among the civilian population to wreak havoc,” they said.
Nigeria, neighbors in joint op against Boko Haram leaders
Nigeria, neighbors in joint op against Boko Haram leaders
South Korea to suspend military pact with North over trash balloons
- Suspending the agreement will pave the way for the South to conduct training near the military border
- The pact had been all but scrapped when Pyongyang declared last year it was no longer bound by it
North Korea has launched hundreds balloons carried by wind across the border that dropped trash throughout South Korea, which called it a provocation and rejected Pyongyang’s claim it was done to inconvenience its neighbor.
The National Security Council said it would raise the plan to suspend the entirety of the military agreement for approval by the cabinet at a meeting on Tuesday.
Suspending the agreement will pave the way for the South to conduct training near the military border and take “sufficient and immediate measures” in response to North Korea’s provocation, the Council said in a statement.
It did not elaborate what those measures may be.
The pact, which was the most substantive deal to come out months of historic summit meetings between the two Koreas in 2018, had been all but scrapped when Pyongyang declared last year it was no longer bound by it.
Since then, the North deployed troops and weapons at guard posts near the military border.
By continuing to comply with the pact, “there have been considerable problems in our military’s readiness posture,” the Council said.
South Korea has previously said it would take “unendurable” measures against North Korea for sending the trash balloons over the border, which could include blaring propaganda from loudspeakers positioned at the border directed at the North.
North Korea has said the balloons were in retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in the South, who regularly send inflatables containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets with food, medicine, money and USB sticks loaded with K-pop music videos and dramas across the border.
North Korea has reacted angrily to the campaign because it is worried about the potential impact of the materials on the psychology of the people who read or listen to them and on the state’s control of the public, experts said.
Tens of thousands of children in Afghanistan are affected by ongoing flash floods, UNICEF says
- Afghanistan ranks 15th out of 163 nations in the Children’s Climate Risk Index
ISLAMABAD: Tens of thousands of children in Afghanistan remain affected by ongoing flash floods, especially in the north and west, the UN children’s agency said Monday.
Unusually heavy seasonal rains have been wreaking havoc on multiple parts of the country, killing hundreds of people and destroying property and crops. The UN food agency has warned that many survivors are unable to make a living.
UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said the extreme weather has all of the hallmarks of an intensifying climate crisis, with some of the affected areas having experienced drought last year.
The World Food Program said the exceptionally heavy rains in Afghanistan killed more than 300 people and destroyed thousands of houses in May, mostly in the northern province of Baghlan. Survivors have been left with no homes, no land, and no source of livelihood, WFP said.
UNICEF said in a statement Monday that tens of thousands of children remain affected by ongoing floods.
“The international community must redouble efforts and investments to support communities to alleviate and adapt to the impact of climate change on children,” said Dr. Tajudeen Oyewale, the UNICEF representative in Afghanistan.
At the same time, “UNICEF and the humanitarian community must prepare ourselves for a new reality of climate-related disasters,” Oyewale said.
Afghanistan ranks 15th out of 163 nations in the Children’s Climate Risk Index. This means that not only are climate and environmental shocks and stresses prominent in the country, but children are particularly vulnerable to their effects compared with elsewhere in the world.
Last week, the private group Save the Children said about 6.5 million children in Afghanistan are forecast to experience crisis levels of hunger in 2024.
Nearly three out of 10 Afghan children will face crisis or emergency levels of hunger this year as the country feels the immediate impact of floods, the long-term effects of drought, and the return of Afghans from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, the group said in a report.
More than 557,000 Afghans have returned from Pakistan since September 2023, after Pakistan began cracking down on foreigners it alleges are in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans.
Sheinbaum elected Mexico’s first woman president by landslide
MEXICO: Claudia Sheinbaum was elected Mexico’s first woman president by a landslide Sunday, preliminary official results showed, making history in a country long plagued by gender-based violence.
The ruling party candidate won around 58-60 percent of votes, more than 30 percentage points ahead of her main opposition rival Xochitl Galvez, the National Electoral Institute announced after a quick count.
South Africa’s Ramaphosa says violence has no place after election
- Voters angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling power blackouts slashed support for the ANC to 40.2 percent
JOHANNESBURG: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday there was no place for threats of violence or instability after last week’s election cost his African National Congress (ANC) party its majority for the first time.
The result, announced on Sunday, was the worst election showing for the ANC, Africa’s oldest liberation movement, once led by Nelson Mandela, since it came to power 30 years ago, ending white minority rule.
Voters angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling power blackouts slashed support for the ANC to 40.2 percent, down from 57.5 percent in the previous 2019 parliamentary vote.
The result means the ANC must share power, probably with a major political rival, to keep it — an unprecedented prospect in South Africa’s post-apartheid history.
“This moment in our country calls for responsible leadership and constructive engagement,” Ramaphosa told the nation in a weekly newsletter. “There can be no place for threats of violence or instability.”
The sharp drop in ANC support has fueled speculation that Ramaphosa’s days might be numbered, either due to the demands of a prospective coalition partner or as a result of an internal leadership challenge.
But so far senior party officials have publicly backed him, and analysts say he has no obvious successor.
Former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe party has said it is considering a court challenge to the election results, despite performing much better than many had expected to come in third with 14.6 percent of the vote.
Analysts have long feared Zuma’s party may stir up trouble if his supporters, who rioted and looted for days when he was arrested for contempt of court in 2021, reject the results.
Ramaphosa added, “South Africans must stand firm against any attempts to undermine the constitutional order ... for which so many struggled and sacrificed.”
Sri Lanka closes schools as floods and mudslides leave 10 dead and 6 others missing
- Six people died after being washed away and drowning in the capital, Colombo, and the remote Rathnapura district on Sunday, according to the disaster management center
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka closed schools on Monday as heavy rain triggered floods and mudslides in many parts of the island nation, leaving at least 10 people dead and six others missing, officials said.
The education ministry announced that the reopening of schools would depend on how the weather develops.
Heavy downpours have wreaked havoc in many parts of the country since Sunday, flooding homes, fields and roads, and forcing authorities to cut electricity as a precaution.
Six people died after being washed away and drowning in the capital, Colombo, and the remote Rathnapura district on Sunday, according to the disaster management center. Three others died when mounds of earth collapsed on their houses, and one person died when a tree fell on him. Six people have gone missing since Sunday.
By Monday, over 5,000 people had been moved to evacuation centers and more than 400 homes had been damaged, the center said in a statement.
Navy and army troops have been deployed to rescue victims and provide food and other essentials to those affected.
Sri Lanka has been grappling with severe weather conditions since mid-May caused by heavy monsoon rains. Earlier, strong winds downed trees in many areas, killing nine people.
