Nigerian troops who once fled from Boko Haram now have the militants on the run
YOLA, Nigeria — A year ago, a dozen Nigerian troops fighting about 200 Boko Haram militants in the town of Chibok exhausted their ammunition and ran, leaving the road open for the abduction of nearly 300 girls.
Today, Nigerian soldiers are rescuing hundreds of kidnapped girls and women from the last forest stronghold of the Islamic insurgents.
The reason for the unimaginably swift shift in fortunes?
In the last three months, military forces from neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon have joined the battle. In addition, Nigerian troops are finally receiving better arms and weapons, as well as hazard pay that they had not received until this year.
As a result, Boko Haram’s supply lines are being cut off, creating conditions for the security forces to deliver a potential knockout blow to the extremists who have created havoc in northeastern Nigeria for years.
Californians missed governor’s water conservation target
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Californians conserved little water in March and local officials were not aggressive in cracking down on waste, state regulators reported Tuesday as they considered tough measures to force savings amid a continuing drought.
The State Water Resources Control Board received the update as it considers sweeping mandatory emergency regulations to protect water supplies in the parched state.
Brown has argued that the voluntary targets in place since early 2014 were insufficient and that Californians needed a jolt to take conservation seriously.
A survey of local water departments released at the start of the two-day meeting shows water use fell less than 4 percent in March compared with the same month in 2013. Overall savings have been only about 9 percent since last summer, even though Brown set a voluntary 20 percent target.
Ex-IRA commander shot dead in Belfast
DUBLIN — A former Irish Republican Army commander linked to one of the outlawed group’s most notorious killings was shot dead at close range Tuesday morning on a street near his home in Belfast, residents and police said.
No group claimed responsibility for killing Gerard “Jock” Davison, 47, in Belfast’s Markets neighborhood. It was the first fatal shooting in Northern Ireland in more than a year.
Officers ordered an immediate increase in visible street patrolling, including road checkpoints, to deter what they called a rise in attacks by IRA die-hards in the run-up to Thursday’s United Kingdom general election involving Northern Ireland, which has 18 seats in the House of Commons in London. Small IRA factions who reject their side’s 1997 cease-fire and subsequent efforts to govern Northern Ireland in a spirit of compromise have planted several bombs in the past two weeks, none of which caused significant damage.
Islamic State group claims responsibility for attack in Texas
PHOENIX — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Tuesday for the assault on a Texas cartoon contest that featured images of the Prophet Muhammad, but counterterrorism experts said IS has a history of asserting involvement in attacks in which it had no operational role.
That suggests the two gunmen could have carried out their own lone wolf-style strike before they were shot and killed at the scene of Sunday’s shooting in the Dallas suburb of Garland.
Federal officials identified the pair as Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, both Americans who lived in Phoenix. They were described as amicable and quiet and were sometimes seen feeding stray cats outside their apartment complex. Federal authorities had been scrutinizing Simpson’s social media presence recently but had no indication he was plotting an attack, said one federal official familiar with the investigation.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it’s too early to say whether the Islamic State group played a role in the assault. He said U.S. officials are working aggressively to counter terrorist efforts to use social media to radicalize individuals in the United States.
IS recently urged those in the United States, Europe and Australia who cannot safely travel to fight in Syria and Iraq to carry out jihad in the countries where they live. An audio statement on the extremist group’s Al Bayan radio station called the men “two soldiers of the caliphate.”
By wire sources