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
Singapore says 3 men detained since October for seeking to join Mideast conflict
The Home Affairs Ministry said in a statement the three Singaporean men were not linked to one other and had been “radicalized” online, but there was no indication others had been recruited.
It was not immediately clear why the ministry announced the detention on Thursday.
Following their arrest in October, they were detained under Singapore’s Internal Security Act, which allows suspects to be held for lengthy periods without trial.
The three were a director of a digital marketing company, a lift mechanic, and a security guard, aged 41, 21, and 44, respectively.
One of the men had visited a shooting range in Thailand to learn to operate firearms, while two planned to visit shooting ranges in Indonesia, it said.
The ministry said restrictions were placed on two other Singaporeans in June and July last year under the security law, related to the conflict in Gaza.
More than 46,000 people have been killed in the Gaza war, according to Palestinian health officials.
Much of the enclave has been laid waste, and most of the territory’s 2.1 million people have been displaced multiple times and face acute shortages of food and medicine, humanitarian
agencies say.
Zelensky meets Meloni for talks in Rome
- Meloni “reiterated the all-round support that Italy ensures and will continue to provide to the legitimate defense of Ukraine... ,” her office said
- She also “expressed solidarity for the victims of the recent Russian bombings“
ROME: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held talks in Rome Thursday with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, after meeting other allies in Germany.
Meloni “reiterated the all-round support that Italy ensures and will continue to provide to the legitimate defense of Ukraine... to put Kyiv in the best possible condition to build a just and lasting peace,” her office said.
She also “expressed solidarity for the victims of the recent Russian bombings,” it said in a statement, as the grinding war nears the three-year mark.
Zelensky had earlier Thursday joined a meeting of about 50 allies at the US air base Ramstein in Germany — the last such gathering before Trump takes office on January 20.
The US president-elect has criticized the large amount of US aid for Kyiv and vowed to bring the war to a swift end, without making any concrete proposals for a ceasefire or peace agreement.
In Germany, Zelensky said Trump’s return to the White House would open a “new chapter” and reiterated a call for Western allies to send troops to help “force Russia to peace.”
In a post on X, Zelensky thanked Italy for its “unwavering support,” saying: “Together, we can bring a just peace closer and strengthen our collective positions.”
He and Meloni discussed “strengthening security, addressing global developments, and preparing for this year’s Ukraine Recovery Conference to be held in Rome,” he said.
Meloni, who has led NATO and EU member Italy since October 2022, has strongly supported Ukraine in its fight against Russia, but is also politically close to Trump.
At a press conference in Rome earlier, Meloni — who visited Trump at his Florida home last weekend — said she did not believe the president-elect would abandon Kyiv.
“Frankly I don’t foresee a disengagement,” she said, adding that Trump had previously “said precisely because we want peace, we will not abandon Ukraine.”
She added that she would support options for peace that Ukraine would support.
NATO and EU member Italy has sent arms and aid to Ukraine to help fight off Russia’s invading forces, but has refused to allow Kyiv to use its weapons inside Russian territory.
Zelensky’s spokesman Sergiy Nykyforov said the Ukrainian president would meet Friday with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, the country’s largely ceremonial head of state.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also in the Italian capital on Thursday for separate talks with European counterparts on Syria. It was not clear if he planned to meet Zelensky during his trip.
US President Joe Biden had also been due to visit Rome in what was expected to be his final overseas trip in office, but canceled to focus on the federal response to wildfires raging across Los Angeles.
Scotland leader refuses to be drawn on Lockerbie bombing inquiry
- John Swinney would not speculate on backing public inquiry into 1988 attack while criminal case against suspected bomb maker underway in US
- Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over UK that killed 270 people blamed on Libyan intelligence officials
LONDON: Scotland’s first minister has refused to be drawn on whether he supports a public inquiry into the 1988 bombing of a passenger plane blamed on Libyan intelligence officials.
The downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie killed 270 people and remains by far the most deadly terror attack on British soil.
Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi was jailed in 2001 for his role in the plot to place the bomb on board the flight. Al-Megrahi, who died in 2012, always insisted he was innocent and doubts have been raised about his conviction.
A television series released last week in the UK, which tells the story of the investigation by one of the victim’s fathers, has renewed interest in the case, as has an upcoming court case in the US of the alleged bomb maker, the Libyan Abu Agila Masud.
A member of the Scottish Parliament, Christine Grahame, asked First Minister John Swinney on Thursday if he supported a UK inquiry into the bombing given the “remaining concerns for some, including myself, about the credibility of the conviction” of Al-Megrahi.
She also highlighted what she described as the resistance of the UK Government to releasing relevant documents in relation to the bombing, the Daily Record reported.
Swinney said that while there was a criminal case underway in the US, “I would prefer not to speculate on possible inquiries.”
Al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted for the attack and there has been no public inquiry in the UK.
His trial by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands took place more than 11 years after the bombing and followed long negotiations with the then Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to hand him over along with another suspect.
The recent TV series “Lockerbie: A Search for Truth” stars British actor Colin Firth as Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed on the flight as it flew from London Heathrow to New York City four days before Christmas.
Swire believes that Al-Megrahi, who died in 2012 three years after being released on compassionate grounds, was innocent.
Two-thirds of the victims of the bombing were American and 11 residents in the town of Lockerbie were killed when sections of the aircraft fell on residential areas.
Russia breaches frontline river in east Ukraine, official says
- The Oskil river is the de-facto front line in parts of the eastern Kharkiv region
- The major of the local hub, Kupiansk, said the situation was “extremely difficult”
KYIV: Russian forces have established a bridgehead on the Ukrainian-held side of a frontline river in the east of the country, a local official said Thursday, pointing to Kyiv’s mounting battlefield struggles.
The Oskil river is the de-facto front line in parts of the eastern Kharkiv region, with Ukrainian troops entrenched mainly on the western bank and Russian forces moving to capture the eastern side.
Kremlin forces have been launching audacious attempts to cross, and local Ukrainian official Andrii Besedin told state television Thursday they had managed to cross and establish positions.
“The enemy is trying to gain a foothold in the town of Dvorichna, which is already on the right bank of the Oskil, and expand the entire bridgehead,” he said.
Besedin, the major of the local hub, Kupiansk, said the situation was “extremely difficult” and warned that Russian troops could use the bridgehead to flank Ukrainian positions.
He said Russian forces were now just two kilometers (about one mile) outside of Kupiansk, which was one of the main prizes of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in late 2022.
“The enemy is constantly trying to carry out assault operations,” he said.
The advances conceded by the local official come at a precarious time for Ukrainian forces across the sprawling front, where Russian forces have been advancing at their fastest pace in around two years.
If Russia captures more territory around Kupiansk or in the wider Kharkiv area it would undo gains that Ukraine secured in a sweeping 2022 offensive that embarrassed the Kremlin.
Both sides are looking to secure a better position on the battlefield before incoming US president Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, almost three years after Russia invaded.
Putin says more needs to be done to clean up Black Sea oil spill
- The oil leaked from two aging tankers after they were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 in the Kerch Strait
- One sank and the other ran aground
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that more needed to be done to clean up an oil spill in the Black Sea, saying efforts so far appeared to have been insufficient to deal with the ecological disaster.
The oil leaked from two aging tankers after they were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 in the Kerch Strait. One sank and the other ran aground.
Approximately 2,400 metric tons of oil products spilled into the sea, Russian investigators said last week, in what Putin on Thursday called “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in years.”
When the disaster struck, state media reported that the stricken tankers, both more than 50-years old, were carrying some 9,200 metric tons (62,000 barrels) of oil products in total.
Since the spill, thousands of emergency workers and volunteers have been working to clear tons of contaminated sand and earth on either side of the Kerch Strait. Environmental groups have reported deaths of dolphins, porpoises and sea birds.
The Kerch Strait runs between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and separates Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula from Russia’s Krasnodar region.
Putin told a government meeting that the clean-up efforts had been poorly coordinated between regional and federal bodies.
“From what I see and from the information I receive, I conclude that everything being done to minimize the damage is clearly not enough yet,” the Kremlin leader told officials.
He called for a commission to be formed to mitigate the disaster and prevent oil products from leaking from flooded tankers in the future.
