Boko Haram Kills 49 in Attacks Across Nigeria’s Northeast

Pentagon to Add Drones to Nigeria Surveillance Op

Multiple strikes across Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno have left at least 49 people dead and many villages badly damage. as Boko Haram continues its offensive against the region.

Hit the hardest was the tiny village of Dalwa-Masuba,which on Saturday saw Boko members ambushing vans carrying firewood, and then attacking the village outright, burning much of it to the ground.

Five more were killed in the neighboring Kano State, where a suicide car bomb hit a street full of popular restaurants in the foreign quarter. Boko Haram frequently attacks that part of Kano, objecting to the public sale of alcohol there as Un-Islamic.

In the latest indications that the US is moving closer to direct intervention, the Pentagon has announced that it is planning to add another surveillance drone to the “intelligence gathering” operation in the country’s northeast. Though the planes are looking for 276 kidnapped schoolgirls, US law actually forbids the Pentagon from sharing any intelligence directly with Nigeria’s human-rights violating government, and many in Congress are pushing for the US military to launch its own unilateral “rescue operation” in the area.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.