Abuja DSS Attack | |
---|---|
Part of Islamist insurgency in Nigeria | |
Location | Abuja, FCT, Nigeria |
Date | 31 March 2014 |
Target | Department of State Security, Abuja |
Attack type | Prison escape |
Deaths | 21 |
Injured | 2 |
Perpetrators | Boko Haram |
No. of participants | Unknown |
Defenders | 0 |
The Abuja DSS attack was a coordinated terrorist attack by the Islamic group Boko Haram on the Department of State Security, Abuja on 31 March 2014 in a bid to escape from detention. [1] This resulted in the death of 21 insurgents who attempted to escape leaving 2 security personnel severely injured. [2]
The incident occurred on Sunday 31 March 2014 in the morning, when one of the service suspect handler went to the detention to serve their breakfast. [3] In a bid to return to his office, he was disarmed by one of the insurgents who hit him on the head with his handcuff in an attempt to escape. [4] This incessant action drew the attention of the armed guards who shot in the air to stop them. [2] This effort was futile until the army officers came in to suppress the uprising. [5] Twenty-one prisoners were killed by the military personnel and two government officials were seriously injured. [6]
After the attack, there was a controversy over the death of the 21 prisoners who died in the process of the attack, [7] because some innocent prisoners might have been killed by the soldiers who labeled them as Boko haram. [8] This assumption was based on the New York Times publications of the Amnesty International report that alleges malicious killing of about 600 unarmed, [9] rearrested escapees who had been earlier freed when Boko haram attacked the Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri. [10] The Amnesty International report was based on an eye-witness account of the Nigerian soldiers' killing of the innocent rearrested prisoners that was freed by Boko haram during the Giwa military barracks attack. [11] The eye-witness said: "The former detainees were in a classroom. They started screaming 'we are not Boko Haram. We are detainees!’ My neighbours and I saw the soldiers take the men to a place called 'no man's land,’ behind the University of Maiduguri. We watched as the soldiers opened fire killing all 56. They were killed in front of us. All of them", according to the New York Times. [12]
Maiduguri is the capital and the largest city of Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria, on the continent of Africa. The city sits along the seasonal Ngadda River which disappears into the Firki swamps in the areas around Lake Chad. Maiduguri was founded in 1907 as a military outpost by the British Empire during the colonial period. As of 2022, Maiduguri is estimated to have a population of approximately two million people, in the metropolitan area.
The State Security Service(SSS), self-styled as the Department of State Services (DSS), is a security agency in Nigeria and one of three successor organisations to the National Security Organization (NSO). The agency is under the Presidency of Nigeria, and it reports its activities direct to the President, office of the ONSA, headquartered in Abuja.
Boko Haram, officially known as Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād, is an Islamist terrorist jihadist organization based in northeastern Nigeria, which is also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. In 2016, the group split, resulting in the emergence of a hostile faction known as the Islamic State's West Africa Province.
Bama is a town and a local government area in the central part of Borno State, Nigeria.
Gwoza is a local government area of Borno State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Gwoza, a border town "about 135 kilometres South-East of Maiduguri." The postal code of the area is 610.
Monguno is one of the local government areas of Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria.
The Boko Haram insurgency began in July 2009, when the militant Islamist and jihadist rebel group Boko Haram started an armed rebellion against the government of Nigeria. The conflict is taking place within the context of long-standing issues of religious violence between Nigeria's Muslim and Christian communities, and the insurgents' ultimate aim is to establish an Islamic state in the region.
The Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa, better known as Ansaru and less commonly called al-Qaeda in the Lands Beyond the Sahel, is an Islamic fundamentalist Jihadist militant organisation originally based in the northeast of Nigeria. Originally a faction of Boko Haram, the group announced in 2012 that it had pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and was independent. Despite this, Ansaru and other Boko Haram factions continued to work closely together until the former increasingly declined and stopped its insurgent activities in 2013. The group was revived in 2020, and has been involved in the Nigerian bandit conflict.
Timeline of the Boko Haram insurgency is the chronology of the Boko Haram insurgency, an ongoing armed conflict between Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. Boko Haram have carried out many attacks against the military, police and civilians since 2009, mostly in Nigeria. The low-intensity conflict is centred on Borno State. It peaked in the mid-2010s, when Boko Haram extended their insurgency into Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group called Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Prior to the raid, the school had been closed for four weeks due to deteriorating security conditions, but the girls were in attendance in order to take final exams in physics.
The following lists events from 2014 in Nigeria.
The Ekiti prison break was an attack on the federal prison at Afao road, Ado Ekiti in the southwestern Nigerian city of Ekiti State by 60 unknown gunmen. The attack occurred on 30 November 2014. 341 prisoners escaped from the prison leaving 1 warder and 20 sniffer dogs dead. The escaped prisoners were largely awaiting trial. 10 inmates who attempted to escape were captured during the attack at gunfire exchange between the policemen and the gunmen. 67 inmates were rearrested after the attack and 274 inmates escaped. One inmate, who claimed to have run away when he heard gunshots, returned to the prison to serve out his short sentence.
The Kogi prison break was an attack on Koto-Karffi Federal Medium Security Prisons in Kogi State, in north-central Nigeria by unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the terrorist group, Boko Haram. The attack occurred on 2 November 2014. About 144 prisoners escaped from the prison; 1 inmate was shot and killed during the attack. The escaped prisoners were largely awaiting trial for robbery. Twelve inmates returned to the prison to serve out their sentences and about 45 escaped prisoners were recaptured altogether.
A prison break is an unlawful act under Nigerian law, of a prisoner forcing their way out of a prison. It can also be described as attacks on the Nigerian Prisons Services by terrorists such as Boko Haram and armed robbers in which many prisoners are released. Often, when this occurs effort are made by the Nigerian Prisons Services in conjunction with security agency to rearrest the escapee and return them to the prison and this may result in the extension of their jail term. Prison break in Nigeria may be attributed to corruption, poor funding of the prison services, poor prison facilities, inadequate security features such as CCTV, motion sensors, high wall made up of barbed wire and sometimes electric fencing of the wall.
Starting in late January 2015, a coalition of West African troops launched an offensive against the Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria.
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The Chibok ambush was an attack of Boko Haram insurgents against a Nigerian Army convoy in the night from 13 to 14 May 2014, as the latter was searching for schoolgirls who had been kidnapped by the Islamist rebels. Even though the Nigerian Army forces managed to extricate themselves from the ambush, the attack seriously affected the morale of the involved soldiers who felt that their leadership was carelessly sacrificing them in the war against the insurgents. As result, elements of the Nigerian Army's 7th Division subsequently mutinied at Maiduguri and almost killed their own commander, "humiliat[ing] the Nigerian military".
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