ABUJA, Nigeria — A long holiday weekend of kidnapping and suicide bombing, spilling over into Monday, highlighted an apparent shift by the violent Islamists of Boko Haram, with the group now targeting prominent political figures in two countries. On Sunday, dozens of presumed Boko Haram members burst into the home of a key member of Cameroon’s government just across the border from Nigeria, kidnapping his wife and killing an unknown number. On the same day, and then again on Monday, female suicide bombers struck in Kano, northern Nigeria’s most important city, killing at least three and injuring others. But it was Sunday’s kidnapping of the wife of Amadou Ali, Cameroon’s vice prime minister and one of the country’s most visible political figures, that represented an especially notable new trend in the terrorist group’s tactics. It followed an attempt last week in Kaduna, Nigeria, on the life of the country’s most prominent opposition leader, Muhammadu Buhari. The attack continued to reverberate in the Nigerian news media throughout the long weekend marking the end of Ramadan, with commentators highlighting the potential chaos that Mr. Buhari’s death would have provoked. The same apparent motivation, destabilizing neighboring Cameroon’s political foundations, was evident in the attack on Mr. Ali’s home in the northern village of Kolofata, which he was visiting for the weekend. Mr. Ali has for years been a pillar of the government of Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, one of Africa’s longest-serving and most autocratic leaders. He was the mastermind of Mr. Biya’s long-running prosecution campaign against members of his own government, ostensibly to root out corruption, called Opération Épervier, or Operation Sparrowhawk, which has seen many high-ranking officials sent to jail. Analysts of Cameroon’s politics have said Mr. Biya’s principal motivation has been to maintain an unchallenged grip on power. The French magazine Jeune Afrique called Mr. Ali “the one who held the sword of Damocles above the heads of his government colleagues,” and the man who “provoked sleeplessness in the political-administrative elite.” About 250 heavily armed men attacked Mr. Ali’s home in Kolofata on Sunday, according to authorities in Cameroon. Mr. Ali, a former defense and justice minister, was out when the attackers came, Cameroon’s communications minister, Issa Tchiroma said, so they took his wife instead. The militants also attacked the home of the town’s mayor, kidnapping him and six members of his family. At least 15 people, including bystanders and household members, were killed at the two homes, according to the Cameroonian news media. Continue reading the main story Five Years of Attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria Boko Haram, the radical group that abducted more than 200 girls from a Nigerian village in April, has steadily increased the frequency and brutality of its attacks since its formation in 2002. Sources: Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project; Global Terrorism Database, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism; IHS Country Risk The bloody tactics that Nigerians have become used to were evident in the Cameroon attack, the third in that country since Friday. “They carried out a massacre,” Mr. Tchiroma said. He added that, “They looted, they killed,” and, “You can’t imagine the spectacle.” The attack in Kolofata followed the sentencing in a Cameroonian military court on Friday of over a dozen men accused of being Boko Haram militants. The group has in the past sought to exchange kidnap victims for militants. Across the border in Kano, Boko Haram’s campaign of bombing continued Sunday and Monday, with at least 11 killed, including five at a Catholic church where an attacker hurled an explosive as worshipers left. Meanwhile, the group deployed a new tactic — female suicide bombers — in attacks across the sprawling city that killed at least three, besides the bombers. In the attacks on Monday, female bombers set off explosives at a gas station and outside a trading center, according to the Nigerian police. In the first attack, the one resulting in the three deaths, women were lining up to buy kerosene for cooking when the bomber struck. The emir of Kano, the city’s traditional ruler, canceled end-of-Ramadan celebrations in response to the attacks. nytimes/2014/07/29/world/africa/boko-haram-targets-political-figures-in-string-of-attacks.html?_r=0
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 09:39:52 +0000
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