AsLibyaimplodes,Obamasends80U.S.troops

As Libya implodes, Obama sends 80 U.S. troops to Chad to help find the kidnapped Nigerian girls

posted at 6:01 pm on May 21, 2014 by Allahpundit

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I think this might be a sneak peek at the final two and a half years of Hopenchange foreign policy. Having achieved squat from his big-ticket initiatives — outreach to Russia, Egyptian democracy, intervention in Libya, a doomed nuclear “deal” with Iran — maybe Obama’s planning to stick to small-ball actions that everyone can feel good about from here on out. Post-Qaddafi Libya increasingly looks like a “Mad Max” landscape, but if our boys can mow down some Boko Haram scumbags and get a few of those kidnapped girls back, everyone will smile, no?

Reports from border villagers soon after more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped from their secondary school in Chibok by Boko Haram indicated that some may have been ferried across Lake Chad or taken to Chad or Cameroon via land routes…

“Approximately 80 U.S. Armed Forces personnel have deployed to Chad as part of the U.S. efforts to locate and support the safe return of over 200 schoolgirls who are reported to have been kidnapped in Nigeria,” said the letter from Obama submitted to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate President Pro Tempore Pat Leahy (D-Vt.).

“These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area,” Obama continued. “The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required.”

I’d be curious to hear O explain the national-security rationale for this mission, although, in fairness to him, the public doesn’t demand one of those to justify a small military intervention. U.S. troops won’t be in the lead here, just in a support role, much like the troops who were sent to Africa a few years to try to find Joseph Kony. They haven’t found him yet, just like they probably won’t find the girls. It’s not for lack of trying; it’s just that the project is quixotic.

On Tuesday, a Defense Department spokesman, Rear. Adm. John Kirby, called the search for the missing girls tantamount to finding “a needle in a jungle.”

“We’re talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it’s dense forest jungle,” he told reporters.

We might not find them but we’re trying, and that proof of Obama’s good intentions is something he can and will point to the next time he’s called out on his record of endless foreign-policy misfires. You’re apt to hear a lot about this deployment in the news today; what you might not have heard is that there’s another small squad of U.S. troops who are preparing to deploy to Africa for a very different kind of mission. Quietly, 250 Marines are on alert in Sicily right now to evacuate the U.S. embassy in Libya if things go (further) sideways in Tripoli. The country has reached the brink of dissolving into outright warlordism — in part because the White House didn’t pay enough attention to stop it.

Libyan authorities, to put it bluntly, have lost control of their country. A revolt by a rogue general against Libya’s Islamist groups has pitted the nation’s vast constellation of militias against one another, with civilians increasingly caught in the crossfire. The country’s neighbors and partners are frantic: Over the weekend, Algerian forces dropped into the capital city Tripoli to exfiltrate their ambassador and later closed all border crossings with Libya; Tunisia amassed 5,000 troops at the Libyan border; and the U.S. Defense Department doubled the number of aircraft on standby in Italy and deployed hundreds of Marines to Sicily in case they needed to abruptly evacuate the embassy, a decision that could come at literally any moment…

[T]he administration … unveiled a program late last year that would have brought roughly 8,000 Libyan soldiers outside the country for military training designed to turn them into the core of a new Libyan army. The program has struggled to get off the ground, however. A former U.S. official involved in the creation of the program said the administration seemed to quickly lose interest in the program and was never willing to devote the resources necessary to train enough troops to actually help pacify Libya…

[T]he U.S. [also] preferred to leave many issues related to the economy to the Libyans and other international institutions. “They really did not seek to play a major visible role,” said Jacquand.

Say this much for O: His approach to Libya has been consistent. He sold the intervention as a case of “leading from behind” and he stuck with it throughout the country’s abortive reconstruction, with Libya now poised for civil war and various forms of jihadi degeneracy, from sharia law to terror plots to arms dealing. Hopefully we’ll bring back the kidnapped girls, though.

Exit question via Ross Douthat: Apart from the Bin Laden raid, what would qualify as a White House foreign-policy “success”? We’re five years into Hopenchange. There should be some red-letter international triumph that America can point to as vindication of the Obama 2008 vision. What is it?

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Tags: Boko Haram, chad, evacuation, girls, kidnapped, Libya, Nigeria

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Andrea Mitchell: Would our mostly male administration have acted sooner if those Nigerian schoolgirls weren’t girls?

AndreaMitchell:Wouldourmostlymaleadministrationhave

McCain:Let’ssendU.S.SpecialForcesintoNigeria

McCain: Let’s send U.S. Special Forces into Nigeria to rescue the kidnapped girls

posted at 6:01 pm on May 13, 2014 by Allahpundit

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And if the Nigerian government refuses? Screw ‘em, says Maverick. We’re going in anyway.

Hashtaggers to the left of me, ultra-hawks to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

“If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country,” McCain told The Daily Beast Tuesday. “I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan,” he added, referring to the president of Nigeria…

McCain said that if he were the American president, he would already be doing several things to respond to the kidnapping of the over 200 girls by the Nigerian terrorist group that the Obama administration has so far declined to do. Those measures include prepositioning U.S. special forces to be ready to enter Nigeria and rescue the girls if the opportunity arose. He said that the United Nations charter authorized military intervention on behalf of the girls because their abduction rose to the level of “crimes against humanity.”…

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, “are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of human beings.”…

“I would not be involved in the niceties of getting the Nigerian government to agree, because if we did rescue these people, there would be nothing but gratitude from the Nigerian government, such as it is,” he said.

So McCain’s now fully embracing the “Uncle Sam, world cop” vision, huh? Intervention anywhere, with or without the governing regime’s permission, with or without any compelling U.S. national-security interest at stake, with no authorization needed beyond the assertion that a crime against humanity is taking place. (Somewhere right now, Putin’s conferring with his inner circle about “crimes against humanity” being committed against ethnic Russians in Kiev.) I’m tempted to ask whether he’d at least require the president to get an AUMF from Congress, but we all know the answer — of course not. That would only impede the mission. In a sense, all he’s doing here is extending the drone philosophy a few steps further: If we can blow up Boko Haram from the sky with the permission of the Nigerian government, we shouldn’t let the regime’s cowardice or corruption stop us from blowing them up without permission. And if we can blow them up without permission, why couldn’t we blow them up from the ground by sending in U.S. troops with grenades? We did it to Bin Laden, after all. QED. There’s no limiting principle on this theory of intervention that I can see except for McCain’s own personal understanding of what constitutes a “crime against humanity.” Which, I’m gonna go ahead and guess, is broad.

Serious question: By Maverick’s logic, shouldn’t we send an American army into Syria? There are lots of crimes against humanity happening there so there’s no need to wait for a formal UN resolution to act. The only difference between attacking Assad and attacking Boko Haram is the certainty of many more U.S. casualties in the former scenario, but if McCain’s willing to see a few Americans die to free several hundred Nigerian schoolgirls, I’m not sure why he wouldn’t be willing to see a few thousand die to protect hundreds of thousands of endangered Syrian Sunnis. While we’re at it, we might as well send troops into Sudan and Congo too, where there are crimes against humanity happening every day. Invade everywhere. See now why Rand Paul has a chance in 2016?

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Tags: Boko Haram, crimes against humanity, girls, goodluck jonathan, kidnapped, mccain, Nigeria, rescue, special forces

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Video:Nigeriain“talks”withBokoHaramto

Video: Nigeria in “talks” with Boko Haram to return abducted girls

posted at 12:01 pm on May 13, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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When are talks not negotiations? That question arises from ABC’s report on the latest in the frantic search to find more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist network which has taunted authorities ever since with threats to sell their hostages into sexual slavery. The Nigerian government has opened talks with the group’s senior leadership, but are taking pains to claim that there are no negotiations in progress:

ABC US News | ABC Entertainment News

Talks are underway between Nigerian officials and senior leadership of Boko Haram, the chairman of the Nigerian president’s Boko Haram “Dialogue Committee” confirmed exclusively to ABC News.

Kabiru Tanimu Turaki would neither confirm nor deny that the talks are with the specific individuals holding the kidnapped girls, only the group’s senior leaders.

Turaki made a distinction between “talking” and “negotiating,” saying at this point the sides are not negotiating for the return of the imprisoned group members in exchange for the schoolgirls. There are more than 4,000 Boko Haram members in detention, according to the Nigerian Interior Ministry.

Turaki says he is confident that a peaceful, negotiated solution can be found.

This sounds like a distinction without a difference. One would presume that talks which include no actual negotiations would be rather brief — “Release the girls,” followed by “No.” Yesterday I mentioned that most countries have a no-negotiation policy with terrorists to keep from incentivizing attacks on civilians, and this report sounds like Nigeria is trying to eat its cake and have it too, but that will only last until either a solution is found or the girls get rescued. At the point where Nigeria gives concessions for a release, the “negotiation” will be rather obvious.

CNS News noticed an interesting inclusion in the video:

A new Boko Haram propaganda video released Monday, showing some of the more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls it abducted last month wearing Islamic garb and chanting the Islamic declaration of faith, also features an al-Qaeda banner.

The banner held up behind the reciting girls by two of their number, is the black-and-white one first used by al-Qaeda in Iraq about seven years ago but since displayed by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Libya. …

As early as June 2012, then-U.S. Africa Command commander Gen. Carter Ham was voicing concern publicly about indications that Boko Haram, AQIM and al-Shabaab were “seeking to co-ordinate and synchronize their efforts.”

The three groups may be sharing funds, training and explosive materials, Ham told a seminar at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, calling the situation “a real problem for us and for African security in general.”

After resisting lawmakers’ calls to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization for almost two years, the State Department eventually did so last November.

A State Department reward offer for information leading to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau being brought to justice refers to “reported communications, training, and weapons links” between Boko Haram, AQIM, al-Shabaab, and the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Those links, it says, “may strengthen Boko Haram’s capacity to conduct terrorist attacks.”

The State Department now recognizes the connections between Boko Haram and a-Qaeda — years later than they should have, but those connections are on record. Just bookmark that for later use, when people insist that Boko Haram has nothing at all to do with Islamist terrorism.

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Tags: al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Nigeria, terrorism

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DidNigeriahavefour-hourwarningpriortoBoko

Did Nigeria have four-hour warning prior to Boko Haram abduction?

posted at 12:01 pm on May 9, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Did Nigeria’s military fail to act prior to the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls last month? That claim comes from an investigation by Amnesty International, in which they assert that a regional military headquarters simply failed to mobilize in time to prevent the terrorist attack:

“Damning testimonies gathered by Amnesty International reveal that Nigerian security forces failed to act on advance warnings about Boko Haram’s armed raid on the state-run boarding school in Chibok which led to the abduction,” the rights group said.

Amnesty said it had verified the information about the abduction with “credible sources”.

“Amnesty International has confirmed… that Nigeria’s military headquarters in Maiduguri was aware of the impending attack soon after 7:00 PM (1800 GMT) on 14 April, close to four hours before Boko Haram began their assault on the town,” the group said.

The military however could not assemble the troops needed to suppress the attack, “due to poor resources and a reported fear of engaging with the often better-equipped” Islamists, according to Amnesty.

A half-dozen American military advisers arrived in Nigeria today to bolster those capabilities, at least in theory. They will join other US and British officials in attempted to track and find the hostages, but that won’t include American boots on the ground:

The advisers will join a team of U.S. and British officials already in Nigeria, helping find the girls, planning rescue efforts and devising strategies to help subdue the terror group Boko Haram, which abducted the girls April 14 from a government boarding school.

About 60 U.S. officials have been on the ground since before the kidnappings as part of counterterrorism efforts with Nigeria, a senior U.S. administration official told CNN. They have been holding meetings, getting resources into the country and making assessments with local authorities.

“Our interagency team is hitting the ground in Nigeria now, and they are going to be working … with President Goodluck Jonathan’s government to do everything that we possibly can to return these girls,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday.

Their tasks include establishing a coordination cell to provide intelligence, investigations and hostage negotiation expertise.

There are no plans to send American combat troops, according to U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, who serves as Pentagon press secretary.

That’s a cautious but probably wise choice, under the circumstances of the wider security issues in the region for the US and NATO. However, it won’t solve the problem of the lack of Nigerian forces or power to deal with Boko Haram on the ground. It raises the question again about why the US didn’t take steps earlier to list Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) despite years of requests from the military — specifically AFRICOM — the CIA, and the FBI and Department of Justice.

Yesterday, the Weekly Standard’s Jeryl Bier revealed that the same question was being asked within the State Department nearly two years ago, at the embassy in Lagos:

On September 20, 2012, then Bureau of African Affairs Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson appeared on a State Department “Live at State” webchat regarding “U.S. Policy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa.”  Questions from journalists and other individuals via webchat were posed to Carson by the host, Holly Jensen. At one point, a question was asked by the “U.S. Consulate in Lagos [Nigeria]“:

MS. JENSEN: The U.S. Consulate in Lagos wants to know: Why is the government reluctant to designate the Boko Haram sect as a foreign terrorist organization?

AMBASSADOR CARSON: Thank you very much. We look at the issue of Boko Haram as a major concern not only to Nigeria but also to Nigeria’s neighbors and Niger and Cameroon and Benin as well. Boko Haram, we believe, is not a homogenous, monolithic organization, but it is comprised of several different kinds of groups.

Carson went on to note that while the organization itself was not designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, three individuals within Boko Haram were designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists in June 2012:

We have, indeed, recently designated three individuals in Boko Haram as individuals who are involved in terrorism, and we have done so because we believe those three individuals have established contacts with foreign terrorist organizations, have gone out and sought to get financing from foreign terrorist organizations, and have tried to establish broader networks and relationships with them.

Bear in mind that this question came after a long string of terrorist attacks in Nigeria, many of them aimed specifically at the Christians within the country. Had we listed them as an FTO in 2011 when nearly every sector of the American national-security community demanded it, the financial and intelligence operations enabled by that step may have helped reduce Boko Haram’s capabilities by now … or maybe not. We will never know, though, and now the entire international community has to play catch-up. That sounds a little like the accusation coming from Amnesty International against Nigeria today.

Tags: abduction, Boko Haram, Hillary Clinton, Nigeria, terrorism

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Video:CNNhostsinnastyargumentoverjust

Video: CNN hosts in nasty argument over just how stupid “hashtag activism” is

posted at 3:21 pm on May 8, 2014 by Allahpundit

Via the Right Scoop, fireworks between Will Cain and the enjoyably snotty Don Lemon, who’s less concerned with Cain’s actual criticism than with the “dog whistle” he perceives about the First Lady. Watch all the way to the end to see just how hostile things get. In fairness, and contrary to popular belief, hashtag activism isn’t always pointless. Time magazine has a nice write-up of how the #BringBackOurGirls campaign on Twitter began in Nigeria as a way of pressuring the government into going after Boko Haram. Then, as it got picked up internationally, it put pressure on leaders abroad to aid in the search. Obama’s already sent a team of military and law enforcement hostage negotiators to Nigeria to help find the girls. If your hashtag initiative has reached the point where it’s forcing western media to ask the president of the United States about it, I’d say you’re doing okay.

Beyond that point, though, after the White House has already acted and there’s really nothing more to be done, all you’re really doing is moral positioning, the Twitter equivalent of “Message: I care.” And that’s how you end up with this.

Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families. It's time to #BringBackOurGirls. -mo pic.twitter.com/glDKDotJRt

— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 7, 2014

As Leon Wolf said, FLOTUS probably could have just … told Obama her opinion rather than tweeting it out, huh? But at least she’s signing onto a movement that’s achieved some results. At its most impotent and moronic, hashtag activism is a substitute for action, not a spur to it. Believe it or not, this person is the honest-to-goodness spokesman for the U.S. State Department, which used to be taken seriously in the world:

To echo @BarackObama today-proud to stand #UnitedForUkraine World should stand together with one voice pic.twitter.com/VeMt578UdY

— Jen Psaki (@statedeptspox) March 26, 2014

That’s Jen Psaki, who’s tweeted effusively before about the “promise of hashtag” and recently scolded Vladimir Putin’s Russia because “They have not been following their hashtag with actions.” That’s going to merit some nifty footnotes in future histories of the decline and fall of American empire.

In lieu of an exit question, here’s a new hashtag for you.

pic.twitter.com/llHHglaDPp

— Leon Wolf (@LeonHWolf) May 8, 2014

Tags: activism, bringbackourgirls, hashtag, kidnapped, Michelle Obama, Nigeria, Twitter

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Video:BokoHaramthreatenstosellabductedChristian

Video: Boko Haram threatens to sell abducted Christian girls into sex slavery

posted at 9:21 am on May 6, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

More than 200 Nigerian girls abducted from a government school will be sold into slavery, according to a videotape from the Islamist terrorist group that captured them. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau taunted Nigerians and parents by telling them that the girls had become the “property” of Allah, presumably because of their Western education, and that he plans to sell his “slaves” in the market:

Shekau’s videotaped taunting of Nigerian government officials has triggered demonstrations in Nigeria, Europe and in at least four U.S. cities.

“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Reuters quoted Shekau as saying, chuckling as he stands in front of an armored personnel carrier with two masked militants wielding AK-47s on either side of him.

“Allah has instructed me to sell them. They are his property and I will carry out his instructions,” he said.

The video emerged days after reports emerged last week that some of girls had been forced to marry their abductors — who paid a nominal bride price of $12 — and that others have been taken to neighboring Cameroon and Chad. NBC News could not verify those reports.

The name “Boko Haram” loosely translates to “Western education is forbidden.” The group is responsible for numerous bloodthirsty attacks on Christians in Nigeria, attempting to drive out Christianity and Western values, and replace them with shari’a law and their own rule. Nigerians had long complained about the ineffectiveness and even hostility from the Nigerian government toward Christians demanding a defense against this ongoing attempt at religious cleansing, but until this abduction, most nations had paid little attention to Boko Haram. The capture of young girls and the threat to sell them into slavery has put the government of Goodluck Jonathan under a harsh international spotlight, and perhaps will result in a larger and more effective effort against Boko Haram as a result.

The AP’s Michelle Faul puts the number of those abducted at 276, and reports on the story of one girl fortunate enough to escape:

The girls in the school dorm could hear the sound of gunshots from a nearby town. So when armed men in uniforms burst in and promised to rescue them, at first they were relieved.

“Don’t worry, we’re soldiers,” one 16-year-old girl recalls them saying. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

The gunmen commanded the hundreds of students at the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School to gather outside. The men went into a storeroom and removed all the food. Then they set fire to the room.

“They … started shouting, `Allahu Akhbar,’ (God is great),” the 16-year-old student said. “And we knew.”

What they knew was chilling: The men were not government soldiers at all. They were members of the ruthless Islamic extremist group called Boko Haram. They kidnapped the entire group of girls and drove them away in pickup trucks into the dense forest.

The Nigerian government says they will have to negotiate with Boko Haram to get the girls back, but that sounds like a rather weak response. Boko Haram wants to eradicate Christianity from Nigeria and impose shari’a law, not launch a political party or acquire a traditional ransom. The “sale” of these slaves isn’t a fundraiser, after all, but a show of power and ruthlessness.

In the meantime, the cause has gone global. People around the world are pressuring their own governments to find ways to rescue the girls. Perhaps this is a moment for people to see past the platitudes of moral equivalency:

Let’s hope that this pressure convinces governments to take Boko Haram as a serious threat.

Update: The school was a government school, not a parochial school. I’ve fixed the first paragraph.

Tags: Boko Haram, Nigeria, terrorism, war on christians

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Video:Twoweekslater,nowordonschoolgirls

Video: Two weeks later, no word on schoolgirls abducted by Nigerian terrorist group

posted at 10:01 am on April 30, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

A horrific attack on a Christian school in Nigeria resulted in the abduction of more than 200 girls. Dozens escaped, but the Nigerian government’s numbers of those left conflict with the school’s much-higher figures that put the number of those still missing close to 200.  Rumors of their status float out through uncorroborated news reports, including one that has the girls sold off into marriages to Islamist terrorists.

MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviewed the AP beat reporter in Nigeria to get an update, and the truth is that we just don’t know what has happened to the girls yet. Nor does it appear that the government has succeeded in finding out what happened in the first place, except that this was a Boko Haram operation:

Nigerian women plan to hold a protest march in Abuja to pressure the government into action:

Protesters will hold a “million-woman march” in the Nigerian capital Wednesday over the government’s failure to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists two weeks ago.

Angry Nigerian parents lashed out at the government Tuesday as a local leader claimed the hostages had been sold as wives abroad.

“May God curse every one of those who has failed to free our girls,” said Enoch Mark, whose daughter and two nieces were among the more than 100 students abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in the Chibok area of the northeastern state of Borno. …

Borno officials have said 129 girls were kidnapped when gunmen stormed the school after sundown on April 14 and forced the students — who are between 12 and 17 years old — onto a convoy of trucks. Officials said 52 have since escaped.

Locals, including the school’s principal, have rejected those numbers, insisting that 230 students were snatched and that 187 are still being held hostage.

The Nigerian Senate pushed President Goodluck Jonathan to ask for UN assistance in finding the abducted girls. Parents and family members have begun arranging their own search parties to do what the Nigerian military either cannot or will not do to rescue the girls. At the moment, though, no one knows where they are or what Boko Haram plans to do with them.

Pray for them, and for their families.

Tags: Boko Haram, islamists, Nigeria, terrorism, war on christians

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Video:SyrianChristiansonthefrontlinesof

Video: Syrian Christians on the front lines of the war

posted at 2:31 pm on February 1, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Fox News offered an in-depth look at the plight of Christians in the Syrian civil war, and implicitly in the region.  The network’s national security analyst KT McFarland interviewed Syrian Orthodox Bishop Dionysius Jean Kawak and Prebyterian minister Riad Jarjour, who are in Washington DC in order to raise awareness of the situation as the US presses for peace talks. With those stalled, however, it’s more important than ever to hear these voices — and not just because of the plight of Syrian Christians, either:

“The Christians, they tried to be neutral,” Bishop Kawak said when asked what side the Christians take, but they were in favor of non-violent political changes in Syria. Now, though, the violence puts them between the Alawites, Shi’ites, and Sunnis, and their political neutrality is irrelevant, and makes them easy targets for all sides as supposed stooges for one of the other factions. That layers on top of the centuries-long effort to push Christians out of the region, despite Dr. Jarjour’s efforts at ecumenism and religious freedom. They are looking to the West for help, and not getting much more than lip service in return.

But it’s not just in the Middle East where this persecution threatens to wipe out Christianity. In Nigeria, a series of attacks from the radical-Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram have targeted and slaughtered dozens of Christians in the past week alone:

At least 99 people were left dead after attacks on two Christian villages in northeast Nigeria this week, suspected to have been carried out by Islamic extremist militants.

Attackers flooded a Catholic church during a Jan. 26 Mass in Wada Chakawa village in Adamawa state. They set off explosives, took hostages and fired guns into the congregation in a five-hour attack, The Associated Press reported.

A separate attack later took place in the village of Kawuri, in northeastern Borno state. More than 50 extremists reportedly took part, killing dozens and burning homes to the ground.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, the Islamic sect Boko Haram is currently resisting a military crackdown in the region and is suspected to be behind the violence.

This Christian Post report gives a grittier view of the attack:

Boko Haram, a Nigerian Islamic terrorist group seeking to eradicate Christianity from the African country and spread Muslim Shariah law, has been blamed for the mass shooting in the village of Waga Chakawa in Adamawa state, and also for violence that killed 52 people in Borno state at the weekend, the BBC has reported.

Terrorists reportedly attacked the village of Kawuri and detonated explosives while merchants were shutting down the crowded market. They also set alight to the homes of residents in the town, with residents still inside many of the houses.

Ari Kolomi, who fled his home in Kawuri to Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, described the destruction left by the group as devastating.

“No house was left standing …The gunmen were more than 50; they were using explosives and heavy-sounding guns,” Kolomi told the Associated Press, adding that he was unsure if any of his relatives had made it out of the village alive.

The violence continued last night, and touched off an act of retribution:

Eight people were killed in religious violence in Nigeria on Friday, including a Christian family of seven, while a roadside bomb killed seven others in an area known for Boko Haram activity. …

In the first attack, unknown gunmen in cars and on motorbikes burst into the family’s house in Unguwar Kajit, a village in the mainly Christian part of Kaduna state, and opened fire, locals said.

“Christian youth provoked by the attack, which they blamed on Fulani Muslims, mobilised and launched reprisal attacks, burning mosques and houses,” youth leader Emmanuel Zadiok told AFP.

One person in a mosque died as it went up in flames, said Muslim resident Mohammed Yakub, confirming Zadiok’s account.

Christian deaths from persecution doubled in 2013 over 2012, and we are unfortunately off to a pace to beat that in 2014.  The crisis of Christian persecution extends beyond the Middle East, and even beyond Islam, as John Allen wrote in his excellent book about the subject, The Global War on Christians, released in October of this year:

This book is about the most dramatic religion story of the early twenty-first century, yet one that most people in the West have little idea is even happening: the global war on Christians. We’re not talking about a metaphorical “war on religion” in Europe and the United States, fought on symbolic terrain such as whether it’s okay to erect a nativity scene on the courthouse steps, but a rising tide of legal oppression, social harassment, and direct physical violence, with Christians as its leading victims.

However counterintuitive it may seem in light of popular stereotypes of Christianity as a powerful and sometimes oppressive social force, Christians today indisputably are the most persecuted religious body on the planet, and too often their new martyrs suffer in silence.

Be sure to pick up the book soon, if you have not done so already, and start pushing the media to cover this story.

Tags: Boko Haram, Christians, Nigeria, radical Islam, Syria, terrorism

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