Boko Haram Launches New Assault on Key Nigerian City of Maiduguri

Explosions Shake Homes in Northeast Nigeria’s Biggest City

 YOLA, Nigeria—Boko Haram on Sunday launched an assault for the third time in a week on northeast Nigeria’s largest city, Maiduguri, a bastion of resistance to the Islamist extremist group.

Large explosions shook homes, mortars rained onto streets and gunshots crackled from the predawn hours, residents said.

But the militants met fierce resistance. As they entered the city on armored cars, tanks, brand-new Toyota pickup trucks and motorbikes, hundreds of local hunters and vigilantes, armed with muskets and machetes, rushed to meet them, officials and militiamen said.

The Nigerian army followed soon after, and by noon the latest in an increasingly routine string of assaults on the city had been pushed back.

“It’s the normal Boko Haram stuff,” said one security official. “It’s a barbaric thing. There’s no actual plan, just to wreak havoc—it’s terror, to stoke fear into people.”

Sunday’s was the first confirmed attack in Nigeria in which either side used heavy mortars. Abdul Mohammed, a local resident, watched one crash into the street, instantly killing three children, as he ate his breakfast.

“I’m still scared,” he said, hours later. “What we don’t know is who it’s coming from: Is it from the Boko Haram, or this Nigerian army?”

Boko Haram’s third and seemingly biggest assault on Maiduguri in a week comes at a potential turning point in this nation’s nearly six-year-old war. Maiduguri, a city of tin-roof shacks, was once home to Boko Haram. But since 2013, the militant group has moved its people into the countryside, where it seized a swath of terrain the size of Belgium last year.

Suddenly, Boko Haram appears to be losing ground, largely due to the arrival of troops from neighboring Chad. Last week, Chadian forces marched into Nigeria, capturing two small settlements along the countries’ shared border.

Nigerian military officials said that has freed them up to chase Boko Haram into its mountain strongholds. Last week, the Nigerian army retook the town of Michika, which Boko Haram had seized in October. The army is now moving into Gwoza, the largest city in a mountain chain where Boko Haram has built extensive camps, one official said.

Still, that hasn’t stopped Boko Haram from expanding its control elsewhere. The group launched a ferocious assault on Maiduguri last weekend, but as troops rushed to protect the city, a separate Boko Haram attack overran a military base in the town of Monguna.

Separately on Sunday, a suicide bomber struck the home of a politician in the nearby city of Potiskum, killing eight people, local police spokesman Danladi Markus said.

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