Villagers ambush Nigerian extremists

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of extremist Islamic militants suspected of planning a fresh attack.

Locals in Nigeria’s northern states have been forming vigilante groups in various areas to resist the militant group who have held more than 270 schoolgirls captive since last month.

In Kalabalge, a village about 250km from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, residents said they were taking matters into their own hands because the Nigerian military is not doing enough to stem Boko Haram attacks.

After learning about an impending attack by militants, locals ambushed two trucks with gunmen. At least 10 militants were detained and scores were killed.

Kalabalge trader Ajid Musa said that after residents organised the vigilante group, “it is impossible” for militants to successfully stage attacks there.

“That is why most attacks by the Boko Haram on our village continued (to) fail because they cannot come in here and start shooting and killing people,” he said. Earlier this year in other parts of Borno, some extremists launched more attacks in retaliation over the vigilante groups.

Borno is where more than 300 girls were abducted last month and one of three Nigerian states where President Goodluck Jonathan has imposed a state of emergency, giving the military special powers to fight the Islamic extremist group, whose stronghold is in north-east Nigeria.

Britain and the US are now actively involved in the effort to rescue the missing girls. Eric Holder, the US attorney general, said FBI agents and a hostage negotiating team are in Nigeria now, providing technology and other materials and working with “our Nigerian counterparts to be as helpful as we possibly can”. US reconnaissance aircraft are flying over Nigeria in search of the missing girls.

The group kidnapped the girls on April 15 from a school in Chibok. At least 276 are still held captive, with the group’s leader threatening to sell them into slavery. In a video released on Monday, he offered to release the girls in exchange for the freedom of jailed Boko Haram members.

A Nigerian government official said “all options” are now open — including negotiations or a military operation with foreign help.

Jonathan this week sought to extend the state of emergency for six more months in the states of Yobe, Adamawa, and Borno.

That move is opposed by some leaders in northern Nigeria who say the emergency measure has brought no success. Yobe governor Ibrahim Gaidam said his government “takes very strong exception” to attempts to extend the state of emergency — a period he described as “marked more by failure than by success”.