BAUCHI, nigeria — Boko Haram extremists have kidnapped about 40 boys and young men and killed scores of soldiers in a bold attack on a multinational military base in northeast Nigeria, according to fleeing residents and an intelligence officer.
The militants came to the remote village of Malari on Friday and urged people to come out and listen to a sermon, said farmer Bulama Malam on Saturday.
“After telling us that they wanted to preach to us, they began to select young men aged between 12 and 25,” Malam said. “I was lucky to escape because they only selected very young and able-bodied men.”
He spoke in Maiduguri, the capital of northeast Borno state, to which he escaped on foot.
On Saturday, hundreds of the insurgents nearly overran the Multi-National Joint Task Force base at Baga, on Nigeria’s northeast border with Chad, an intelligence officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters.
The multinational force includes soldiers from Nigeria and its neighbors to the north and northeast: Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Nigeria’s Boko Haram group
has increased the scope and number of its attacks since Nigeria’s military in October announced that the insurgents had agreed to a cease-fire. Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, denied that in a video.
