“The operations will be carried out within the next 20 days. This is according to the meeting that they held in Baga on Thursday,” said the source. “The only one of these three that they think will give them a tough time is Monguno. They feel Damasak and Abadam will be very easy. They feel Damasak and Abadam are walkovers. Monguno will be understandably tough for them because there is a division there, the 8th Div, so Monguno is a big military operation.”
Boko Haram insurgents are looking to capture three towns in Borno State within the next 20 days, SaharaReporters has been told.
The towns are Damasak, Abadam and Monguno.
According to a security source who spoke with SaharaReporters on Friday, the insurgents made the resolve during a meeting in Baga, on Thursday, after their capture of the town — an attack from which about 700 soldiers have gone missing and more than 2,000 are trapped.
“The operations will be carried out within the next 20 days. This is according to the meeting that they held in Baga on Thursday,” said the source.
“The only one of these three that they think will give them a tough time is Monguno. They feel Damasak and Abadam will be very easy. They feel Damasak and Abadam are walkovers. Monguno will be understandably tough for them because there is a division there, the 8th Div, so Monguno is a big military operation.”
The claim was also confirmed to SaharaReporters by a humanitarian worker, who said fear of the attacks had left them contemplating quitting the three towns for now.
Abadam is a Local Government Area of Borno on the western coast of Lake Chad. It is headquartered in in the town of Malumfatori. It was previously captured by Boko Haram in October 2014, but the military launched a counter-offensive and eventually retook it in February 2015.
Damasak, meanwhile, is the major town in Mobbar Local Government.
