THE marks of terrorist rule start to appear a couple of hundred kilometres north of Yola, capital of Nigeria’s Adamawa state. Bombed churches and burnt-out political offices sit decaying in Hong, one of the southernmost towns taken by Boko Haram. Broken-down tanks adorned with the jihadists’ emblem litter the road. Deep in the self-proclaimed caliphate, signs advertising un-Islamic goods and services have been blotted out in black. In shaky Arabic, the words “There is no god but Allah” are tattooed on walls.
Nigeria has made gains against the Islamic State-affiliated insurgency, which at the height of its power occupied an area of the north-east roughly the size of Belgium. Pushed out of most major settlements now, its fighters are hiding in the scrublands of the Sambisa forest and across the border in Cameroon. Morale among Nigeria’s soldiers has soared. They are better equipped, and better liked, than in years. Children smile and salute them in the streets. “They brought this land back to us,” said one woman farmer, who lost two children when the insurgents took Michika, a town in Adamawa, in 2014.
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Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1NaRyb3
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