Plateau Crisis: Soldiers Open Fire, One Killed

Soldiers serving with the Special Task Force on Jos crisis on Thursday opened fire on rampaging youth who blocked a road in Bokkos Local Government Area, in protest of the killing of a monarch and a night attack there Wednesday.

At least one person was killed and five others injured, witnesses said.

A witness, Mangai Haruna, said the youth refused to allow soldiers into the area, pressing them instead to produce the killers of their kinsmen.

“They shot on our people, one of them died instantly,” Mr. Haruna said.

Residents say there is tension in Bokkos town, as many have fled the area to seek refuge elsewhere. The weekly Thursday market in the town could not open due to the crisis.

A spokesperson for the STF could not be immediately reached.

Plateau State has enjoyed relative calm in recent times after years of ethno-religious conflict that claimed the lives of thousands.

The latest spell of violence began on Monday afternoon when unknown gunmen ambushed and killed Lazarus Agaei, a first class traditional ruler and the Saf Ron Kurele, alongside his wife, son and a police guard.

On Wednesday night, unknown assailants reportedly destroyed homes and attacked residents of the area.

In protest, youth barricaded roads leading to the area on Thursday morning, and blocked the convoy of the police commissioner of Plateau State, Adekunle Oladunjoye. Mr. Oladunjoye was later allowed in.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of operations, Habila Joshak, is currently in Bokkos.

Mr. Joshak was deployed from Abuja to ensure the arrest of the killers of the monarch.

At Bokkos council police station where the youth gathered, Mr. Joshak sued for peace, and assured that perpetrators of the crime would be arrested and prosecuted.

He also visited the palace of the late paramount ruler where he pleaded for calm.

Credit/ Photo: PremiumTimes

One Killed In Boko Haram Attack In Yobe

Boko Haram Islamists killed a civilian and torched his house during a raid on a village in the northeastern Nigerian state of Yobe, a police spokesman said on Monday.  Travelling in all-terrain vans, they raided Babban Gida village around 01:00 am (GMT) Sunday and fought a gunbattle with soldiers. The insurgents stole two police vehicles but were eventually driven out, Toyin Gbadegesin, Yobe state police spokesman told AFP.

“The terrorists ?initially shot dead a man and burnt his thatched hut on the outskirts of the village,” Gbadegesin said. “They attacked the police station where troops engaged them in a fight which forced them to retreat”. Babban Gida, which lies 50 kilometres from the state capital Damaturu, has ?been repeatedly targeted by Boko Haram extremists, whose six-year insurgency has claimed over 17,000 lives and displaced 2.6 million from their homes.

Credit: AFP

France Attack: Terrorist Beheads One, Suspect Arrested & Identified

One person has been beheaded and two people injured in a terrorist attack at a gas factory near Lyon in southeastern France, French President Francois Hollande said Friday. The suspect’s contacts with Muslim fundamentalists, and reports that Islamist flags or writings were found at the scene, point to an Islamist extremist motive.

The shocking incident comes on the same day as both Tunisia and Kuwait were hit by terrorist attacks, the latter an apparent blast at a Shiite mosque claimed by ISIS. In Tunisia, at least 19 people were killed in the assault on a beachfront hotel in Sousse, Tunisia’s interior minister said, according to the state-run TAP news agency. In a televised address from a summit in Brussels, Belgium, Hollande called the French incident a “pure terrorist attack.”

Hollande said a body had been found, along with a severed head with a message. A suspect has been arrested and identified, he said.

The victim of what Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve described as a “barbarous” attack has not yet been publicly identified. U.S. firm Air Products & Chemicals, which owns the factory, said all its employees were accounted for.

Cazeneuve, speaking at the scene of the attack, said the suspect, who was from the Lyon area, was “somebody who was in touch with (Muslim fundamentalist) Salafists.” An intelligence report was opened on the man in 2006 because of suspected radicalization, he said, but this was not renewed in 2008. “He has been under surveillance, but he was not known as being involved in any terrorist act,” Cazeneuve said. French authorities are “investigating any other people that could be accomplices,” he added.

“The dangerous elements were neutralized immediately after the crime was committed,” he said.

Creditcnn