Military Denies Islamist Caliphate Rule in Northeast

(ABUJA)

Nigeria’s military denied claims by Islamist militants Boko Haram that the group seized control of a northeastern town in which it intends to impose Shariah law.

Abubakar Shekau, who leads the insurgents, said in a video given to reporters yesterday that it would enforce Islamic law in Gwoza, a town of about 250,000 people, in Borno state, about 850 kilometers (528 miles) northeast of the capital, Abuja.

“The claim is empty,” Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters said on its Twitter account late yesterday. “The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nigerian state is still intact.”

Boko Haram, which has been waging war on the Nigerian state since 2009, is intensifying its campaign of violence ahead of elections scheduled for next February. It killed more than 2,000 in the first six months of the year, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch, most of whom died in gun and bomb attacks on villages in the majority-Muslim north.

“Any group of terrorists laying claim to any portion of the country will not be allowed to get away with the expression of delusion and crime,” Defence Headquarters said. “Appropriate military operations to secure that area from the activities of the bandits is still ongoing.”

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said on Aug. 19 that fighting has displaced more than 400,000 people in the northeast of Africa’s top oil producer, a nation of about 170 million.

“Allah has given us victory in Gwoza because we are doing Allah’s work,” Shekau said in the video, which also shows dozens of people described as captured vigilante fighters being executed. “Now Gwoza is caliphate under Shariah law.”

Shekau claims in the video to have captured guns and ammunition from the Nigerian military.

Senator Muhammad Ali Ndume, who represents southern Borno, said on Aug. 22 that Gwoza was “under siege.”

“Soldiers of the Nigerian army have been overstretched in both human and material capacity,” he said. “The federal government has to rise to the occasion to give these soldiers the needed support to work.”

President Goodluck Jonathan wants to borrow $1 billion from external lenders to help the security forces battle the militants. On Aug. 20, the U.K. said it was considering deploying new surveillance aircraft to help Nigeria search for more than 200 schoolgirls who are still missing after Boko Haram gunmen abducted them from their dormitories in April.

(Bloomberg)