Boko Haram suspects mount attacks after Nigeria "ceasefire"
Maiduguri, Nigeria - Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed several people in two attacks on Nigerian villages that occurred after the government announced a ceasefire to enable 200 abducted girls to be freed, security sources and witnesses said on Saturday. However, the government cast doubt on whether the attacks really were Boko Haram or one of several criminal groups that are exploiting the chaos of the insurgency. A spokesman said talks to free the girls would continue in Chad on Monday. The fresh attacks dashed hopes for an easing of the northeast's violence, although officials remained confident they can negotiate the release of girls whose abduction by the rebels in the remote northeastern town of Chibok in April caused international shock and outrage. A presidency and another government source said they were aiming to do this by Tuesday. Boko Haram, whose name translates roughly as "Western education is sinful", has massacred thousands in a struggle to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria, whose southern half is mainly Christian in faith. Nigeria's armed forces chief Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh announced the ceasefire on Friday. On Saturday, two senior government sources said it aims to secure the girls' release as early as Monday or Tuesday, although they declined to give further details. In the first attack, suspected insurgents attacked the village of Abadam on Friday night, killing at least one person and ransacking homes, while another assault on the village of Dzur on Saturday morning left at least eight people dead. "I was just boarding a bus when the gunshots started," Adams Mishelia, who was in the adjacent town of Shaffa, said of the Dzur attack. "People were fleeing into the bush, so I got off the bus and headed to the bush too. I later learned they slaughtered eight people." A security source confirmed that attack and the assault on Abadam the night before. Mohammed Bulama, a resident of the main northeastern city of Maiduguri, told Reuters he lost his uncle in the Abadam attack. Other casualties there were unclear. When asked about the violence, government spokesman Mike Omeri said that "the Boko Haram people have also said that some attacks are not undertaken by them". The announcement of the truce came a day before a rally of supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja attended by his vice president, Namadi Sambo, although an expected announcement of Jonathan's candidacy for February 2015 elections did not materialise during the rally. Boko Haram has also not yet commented on the reported truce. The group's sole means of conveying messages is via videotaped speeches by a man claiming to be Abubakar Shekau, its leader whom the military last year said it had killed. (ANA)

FA/ANA/19 October 2014------------