Nigeria: Militants Retake Border Town

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/world/africa/nigeria-militants-retake-border-town.html

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Fighters with the extremist group Boko Haram took back control of the border town of Marte in northeastern Nigeria on Friday, weeks after the Nigerian military said it had contained the Islamic militants in a forest stronghold, the deputy governor of Borno State, Zannah Umar Mustapha, said. Military forces from neighboring countries, coordinating with Nigerian troops, began in late January to drive the insurgents from Marte and dozens of other towns and villages, where they had declared an Islamic caliphate. Government officials had said Boko Haram’s main fighting force was hemmed in within the vast Sambisa Forest. But Mr. Mustapha acknowledged on Friday that many of the militants had not been contained in the forest and had returned to towns and villages in the country’s northeast to continue fighting. Tens of thousands of people have died, with as many as 10,000 killed last year alone, in the nearly five-year-old Islamic uprising.