Rallies in recognition of Al-qaeda-shebab alliance

Gun-toting Shebab insurgents have staged rallies across Somalia to celebrate their group’s recognition by Osama bin Laden’s successor as a member of the Islamist Al-Qaeda network. “The unification of Al-Shebab with Al-Qaeda breaks the hearts of the enemy,” Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told a crowd of several hundred in rebel-held Afgoye, just outside Somalia’s war-torn capital Mogadishu.

12 Islamists killed as citizens criticize army tactics

Nigeria’s army killed 12 suspected fighters from the Boko Haram Islamists during a raid in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Residents said the Feb. 12 raid came in response to a Boko Haram attack against the military in the violence-plagued city. However, citizens accused the army of going on a rampage in one neighbourhood after a bomb attack allegedly killed three soldiers.

In response to the bomb blast, “the soldiers just began shooting indiscriminately and set homes and vehicles on fire, forcing residents to flee,” said resident Abbas Miko. He said hundreds of people had left their homes. Babagana Alkali, the son of the area’s top Muslim leader, also accused the army of shooting at civilians.

Soldiers in Maiduguri have in the past been accused of reacting with indiscriminate violence following Boko Haram attacks, claims the military has rejected.

Asked about the crackdown and reports of military misconduct, Spokesman Hassan Mohammed of the Joint Task Force (JTF) said: “It was also observed that some individuals are still allowing their places of worship, business centres and residences to be used by Boko Haram against security agencies.”

The JTF is special squad established to combat Boko Haram, an extremist group with unclear motives that has killed more than 200 people already this year in Africa’s most populous nation. Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, has seen some of the worst violence.

The security forces have faced mounting pressure to contain the Boko Haram insurgency, which has intensified in recent weeks through a wave of both large and small scale attacks. The group killed at least 185 people in coordinated gun and bomb attacks in Nigeria’s second city of Kano on Jan. 20, its deadliest strike ever. That assault, like much of the group’s recent violence, primarily targeted the police.

Much of the violence has been concentrated in Nigeria’s deeply-impoverished, mainly Muslim north. The southern part of the country is predominantly Christian.