Boko haram launch fist attack on chad

Nigeria's Boko Haram rebels carried out theirfirst attack on Friday inside neighbouring Chad, targetinga village on theshores ofLake Chad as part of a widening insurgency that has suckedin fourcountries.
The Islamist fighters crossedthe vast lake by boatunder cover of darknessto attack the village of Nougboua, across thewater fromthe Nigerian town of Baga.
"They startedfiring on everything that moved," Chadian army spokesperson AzemBermandoa Agoun told national radio.
Two-thirds of Ngouboua, which has becomea sanctuary for Nigerians fleeing attacksby Boko Haram, was torchedin the onslaught, a security sourcesaid.
Chadian forces, backed by military aircraft, returned fire, routing the militants and destroying theirvessels, thesource said.
Chadian officials reported one civilian - thevillage chief - and one soldier killed, with a further fourtroops wounded. Two Boko Haram fighters were also killed and five injured, N'Djamena said.
The securitysource, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave a higher Chadian deathtoll of four civilians, including the chief, and one soldier.
The attack marksa new escalation in Boko Haram'sbloody six-year campaign to establisha hardline Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria, which borders Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
The group has killed thousands of peoplesince 2009. In the past few weeksit has steppedup itsoffensive bothwithin Nigeria and against border towns of neighbouring countries, forcing Nigerian general electionsthat were scheduledfor February 14 to be postponed by six weeks.
Unprecedentedjoint fightback
Faced with the growing regional threat fromthe jihadists, Chad, which had been sparedfrom a Boko Haram attack on itssoil until Friday, has been at the forefrontof a fightback.
Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger this monthlaunched an unprecedented joint effortto crushthe uprising, raising hopes that the insurgents - who have outgunnedNigeria's national army - mightfinally have mettheirmatch.
Butthe UNenvoy for WestAfrica said Friday that Nigeria must stepup and show "robustness" in the campaign.
"They have to demonstrategreater resolve thanhas been the case sofar in this fightagainst a serious enemy," said Mohammed ibn Chambas.
On February 3 Chadian forces launched a ground interventionin the Nigerian border town of Gamboru.
The Chadian forcessucceeded in wresting the town fromthe Islamists but were left reeling a day later after Boko Haram carried out a retaliatory attack in Fotokol, on the Cameroonian sideof the border, in which 19 Chadian and Cameroonian troopsas well as 81 civilians died.
The Islamistsfollowed up last week with theirfirst deadly raids in Niger, to Nigeria's north.
The militants repeatedly struckthe border town of Diffa, afterNiger announcedit planned to send troops to Nigeria to combat them.
While engaging regional forceson several fronts Boko Haram also continuesto eyethe keyprize of thekey northeasternNigerian city of Maiduguri, capital of Borno state.
At least 21 peoplewere killed in two separateattacks Thursday on northeasternvillages near Maiduguri, communityleader MustaphaAbbagini and a witness said.
The rebels setfire tohomes and businesses,Abbagini said.
Mbutaresident Hamidu Bukar said the gunmen accused locals of "spying for military authorities" and vowed to press on towards Maiduguri, where the group was founded in 2002 and which it has attackedat least twice sinceJanuary.
Pre-election violence
Also Thursday, a femalesuicide bomber blew herselfup at a crowded marketin the town of Biu, in southern Borno state, killing atleast 11 people according to a hospital sourceand a vigilante helping the army.
The deathtoll could increase further, with health officials working to establishthe identities ofat least two otherpeopleblown apart by the blast.
The violence in the northhas loomed large over Nigeria'selectioncampaign, adding totensions in what is shaping up as one of the closestraces in years, pitting struggling incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan against Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler who has vowed tovanquish Boko Haram.
Nigeria's human rights commission reported Friday that 58 peoplehad been killed in pre-election violence and warned that rising "hate speech" between the rival campsthreatened a "significant" escalation.
Africa'smost populous countryhas a long historyof bloodshed afterelections but the pre-election violence was "atypical of Nigeria's recent electoral history," the commissionsaid.
Isolatedincidents of deadly unrest between rival factions, sometimes within the same party, were reported acrossthe country.
The rightscommissionwarned that, in theabsence of "urgent steps"to defuse thepolitical tensions, the elections, now setdown for March 28, "would confront a high risk of significant violence."