Boko Haram Strikes Again... kills 14, injures nine in Borno

14 pro-government youth vigilantes were killed on Monday as Boko Haram attacked Bama, a town in Borno State. The attack comes as a surprise as the military reported only a week ago that Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau may have died between late July and early August from bullet wounds he recieved during a gun battle.

Punch reports:

The Chairman, Bama Local Government Area of Borno State,  Alhaji Baba Shehu Gulumba, told journalists in Bama, near Maiduguri, the Borno State capital that the insurgents disguised as soldiers and lured the youths into a trap.

“They were on guard duty when the sect members dressed in military camouflage came and told them that they were needed at a meeting nearby.

“When they had been lured away from their duty posts they were then attacked and killed,” he said.

When our correspondent contacted the Director of Defence Information, Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, he said that he was not aware of the attacks.

He said that he had not received any briefing on an attack by Boko Haram in Borno on Monday.

He said, “I have not seen any such attack and killings in my records; I am not aware of it.”

Bama is in Borno State, the center of the insurgency. The town is not far from a mountainous area along the Cameroon border where many Boko Haram fighters are believed to be holding out, after being cleared from other areas by Nigerian forces.

Their four-year battle to revive an ancient Islamic caliphate in religiously mixed Nigeria remains the main security threat to Africa’s top oil producer.