Twenty-seven hostages seized by militant group Boko Haram in Cameroon in May and July have been released, including 10 Chinese workers and the wife of Cameroon's vice-prime minister, authorities said on Saturday.
Leaders of Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Benin on Tuesday announced plans to step up the fight against Boko Haram with an additional battalion and a command center to tackle the militants whose insurgency has spread beyond Nigeria, a statement said.
The United States has pledged to send 3,000 troops West Africa, using its military muscle to battle the biggest ever outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, with an unprecedented mission to build treatment clinics and train health workers.
The leader of Nigeria's Islamist group Boko Haram said his fighters were now ruling the captured northeastern town of Gwoza "by Islamic law", in the first video to state a territorial claim in more than five years of violent insurrection.
The Wall Street Journal said Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has also gave his approval to the Special Intervention Plan and the release of funds to implement the said government initiative. His office has confirmed the action, and said that an "immediate release" of 1.9 billion naira, or around $11.7 million, to implement the plan has been approved.
Sixteen people were killed when a small passenger plane, operated by Nigeria's Associated Airlines, crashed a little after takeoff outside Lagos airport's domestic terminal on Thursday
Secondary schools have been ordered to close across Nigeria's northeastern state of Yobe after the Islamist organization killed at least 22 students, and then torched their school, BBC News reported. Yobe Governor Ibrahim Gaidam condemned the 'cold blooded murder' attack on Saturday on the Mamudo boarding school. Many schools have been terrorized and burned by Islamists since 2010.
Radical Islamic fighters killed seven foreign hostages in Nigeria, European diplomats said it on Sunday. It is the worst kidnapping violence in decades, as reported by the Huffington Post. Nigeria's police, military, domestic spy service and presidency remained silent over the killings of the construction company workers, who were kidnapped February 16 from the northern Bauchi. The victims included four Lebanese, and one citizen apiece from Britain, Greece and Italy.
