International
Stephane Yas / AFP / Getty Images
Boko Haram fighters targeted a number of mosques and public spaces in northeast Nigeria this week, killing more than 200 people. The escalation in violence followed an ISIL directive for affiliated armed groups to increase attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
At least 11 men in the village of Miringa were dragged from their homes by Boko Haram fighters on Friday and shot for escaping forced conscription by the group, residents said.
Baballe Mohammed, a village resident, said the gunmen came to the village around 1:30 AM on Friday morning. They "picked 13 men from selected homes and took them to the Eid prayer ground outside the village where they opened fire on them," he said, adding two managed to escape.
"The victims were well targeted because they were all residents of Gwargware village... who fled to Miringa some months ago to escape forced conscription by Boko Haram."
In another set of attacks on Thursday, two girls carrying explosives blew themselves up at a crowded market and a military checkpoint in Malari, outside the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, killing at least 13 people.
The violence on Thursday and Friday followed a series of attacks on Wednesday, when the group targeted mosques in the town of Kukawa, killing around 145 people as they prepared to break fast. Boko Haram often defiles mosques where it believes clerics espouse too moderate a form of Islam.
Abbas Gava, spokesman for a regional vigilante group, said Boko Haram fighters also broke into people's homes in Kukawa, killing women and children.
Boko Haram on Tuesday laid siege to the village of Mussaram, about 20 miles from Kukawa, killing another 48 men and boys.
The escalation in violence in northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram has waged a six-year insurgency to create an Islamic caliphate, follows calls by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which the group pledged allegiance to earlier this year, to mar the holy month of Ramadan.
“Make it a month of disasters, defeats and disgrace for infidels everywhere,” Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, an ISIL spokesman, reportedly said in an audio statement at the start of the month.
Boko Haram has killed thousands of people and displaced about 1.5 million others since launching its insurgency in Africa's most populous nation and top oil producer.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who was inaugurated on May 29, has held talks with officials from neighboring countries Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin to establish a regional force to tackle the armed group.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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