Islamist militants

Attack blamed on Islamic State in West Africa another blow to efforts to defeat insurgency ahead of presidential election

A Nigerian army convoy in Borno State, where up to 30 soldiers were killed by Islamists. Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters

Islamist militants have killed up to 30 soldiers in an attack on a military base in north-east Nigeria in one of the biggest attacks of its kind this year.

Security sources said on Saturday the attack on Thursday by suspected members of Islamic State in West Africa was on a base in Zari village in the north of Borno State.

In 2016 ISWA split from Boko Haram, the jihadist group that has killed more than 30,000 people in the region since 2009, when it launched an insurgency to create an Islamic caliphate.

The Zari attack highlights the challenge to secure the north-east, months ahead of a February election in which security looks set to be a campaign issue.

“The battle lasted for about two hours and our colleagues fought them, but things became bad before the fighter jets arrived. We lost about 30 of our soldiers and about 10 were wounded,” said a military source who did not want to be named.

Another source, who also did not want to be named, said 20 to 30 troops had been killed in a surprise attack. Details only emerged days later because it occurred in a remote area near the border with Niger.

The attack, in the Guzamala local government area of Borno, is the latest blow to Nigeria’s efforts to defeat insurgencies by Boko Haram and ISWA.

Earlier this week Nigerian government officials ordered thousands of displaced people to return to Guzamala, an area considered by aid agencies to be unsafe, as pressure mounts to show progress in the war against the insurgents ahead of the presidential election.

The president, Muhammadu Buhari, a former general, won the 2015 election after vowing to crush Islamist militants. He plans to seek a second term in February.

In July the fourth commander in 14 months was named to lead the fight against the militants after a number of embarrassing defeats, despite the government having said since late 2015 that the Islamists in the region had been defeated.

In mid-July 20 Nigerian soldiers went missing following a clash with militants in the Bama area of Borno. Military sources say the troops are feared dead.

Customers peruse goods at Makola market in Accra, Ghana.

ACCRA (Reuters) – Ghana and Togo are the next targets for Islamist militants following high-profile attacks this year in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, according to a memo from Ghana’s Immigration Service.

The memo calls for better border protection in the latest sign of a heightened government response to the threat to West Africa by militants based in northern Mali who have stepped up a campaign of violence in the last year.

It says the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) has evidence from neighbouring Ivory Coast from the interrogation of a man suspected of orchestrating an attack on March 13 in which 18 people were killed. [nL5N16M30G]

“Intelligence gathered by the … NSCS indicates a possible terrorist attack on the country is real. … The choice of Ghana according to the report is to take away the perception that only Francophone countries are the target,” said the memo, dated April 9 and published by Ghanaian media.

It ordered immigration agents on the northern border with Burkina Faso to be extra vigilant and said patrols should be stepped up along informal routes between the two countries.

Ghana is one of Africa’s most stable and peaceful democracies and has not suffered an attack by Islamist militants. Togo is the country’s eastern neighbour.

President John Mahama spoke about the memo in an interview on state radio’s Sunrise FM on Thursday. He asked for public vigilance and said Ghana was also at risk from home grown militants, while noting that countries in the region share intelligence on militant threats.

“We must deal with this without creating panic amongst our people,” he said, adding that the memo should not have detailed the intelligence on which its calls for greater vigilance were based.

Government spokesmen in the presidency and at the immigration ministry did not return calls requesting comment.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for attacks on a hotel in the capital of Mali last November, a restaurant and hotel in Burkina Faso’s capital in January and the Ivory Coast attack. In all, more than 65 people have died, many of them foreigners.

Ghana government memo warns of possible militant attack

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