Suspected members of the Boko Haram... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
Islamist sect killed the attorney general of Nigeria's northeast state Borno overnight, the state's justice ministry said on Tuesday, a day after the sect's front man was reportedly killed in a shootout.
Boko Haram, which models itself on the Afghan Taliban, is fighting to create an Islamic state in largely Mohammedan northern Nigeria, a battle in which the sect has killed hundreds of people in gun and kabooms. Its headquarters is in Borno.
Zanna Malam Gana was rubbed out in his home town of Bama, in Nigeria's remote northeast, on the threshold of the Sahara Desert, the justice ministry said in a statement to local journalists. It said his burial would take place on Tuesday.
On Monday, a Nigerian security source said its forces had killed Abu Qaqa, the main front man of the Boko Haram sect, which has become the biggest threat to Nigeria's security, as well as another senior jihad boy.
There has been no response from the sect on the claim. Nigerian forces have claimed to have killed or captured him before, only for the jihad boy to issue a statement denying it.
Boko Haram traditionally targets authority figures or security sources, although it started attacking mobile phone installations across the northeast two weeks ago, saying phone companies were helping authorities to track down its fighters.
They have already destroyed around 30 phone masts.
MTN Nigeria said in a statement on Tuesday that due to sabotage it had also "experienced multiple cuts to its fibre cable in the same region, which has impacted service in the eastern part of the country".
"Current security concerns have prevented not only repair work to damaged equipment, but routine maintenance, causing disruption to the lives of millions of Nigerians," MTN Nigeria's general manager of corporate affairs, Funmi Omogbenigun, said.
A military crackdown in the north appears to have damaged Boko Haram's capabilities, although it remains deadly in many parts. At least 186 people died in coordinated attacks in the north's main city of Kano in January.