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{{Two attacks by suspected Boko Haram insurgents have killed 24 people in Nigeria’s northeast in the latest violence believed to be in revenge against vigilantes, residents and officials said Tuesday.}}

A survivor and a hospital source spoke of 18 people killed in the town of Bama on Sunday. A resident and a military source said six people were killed in Damasak on Monday.

The two locations are in Borno state, but are some 200 kilometres (124 miles) apart.

The military has encouraged the formation of vigilante groups to help it track down Boko Haram members as it pursues an offensive in the northeast aiming to end the Islamist extremists’ four-year insurgency.

“They came in military uniform and pretended to be members of the JTF,” survivor Mallam Bakura Module said of the attack in Bama, referring to a security task force.

“They asked after members of the vigilante group … but they opened fire on members of the group as we assembled for an address, killing 14 persons and injuring 10 others.”

An official at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital said on condition of anonymity that four others had died on Monday night, bringing the death toll to 18.

In Damasak along the border with the neighbouring nation of Niger, relatives said vigilantes were traced there after travelling to the community to sell goods at the local market.

“They were shot in the middle of the night while sleeping in the (guest) house,” said one relative, Mallam Ali Abdullahi.

A military official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the attack.

The violence was the latest in a spate of such attacks apparently targeting vigilantes and local residents’ cooperation with them.

Vigilantes have been credited with helping to push the insurgents out, but security analysts have warned that the situation risks spiralling out of control and resulting in further violence in the future.

Last week, insurgents dressed as soldiers opened fire on worshippers leaving a mosque in the far northeastern village of Dumba, killing at least 35 people.

{{Tunisia has declared Ansar al-Sharia a terrorist organisation after obtaining proof it killed two secular politicians and several soldiers, Prime Minister Ali Larayedh said on Tuesday.}}

Ansar al-Sharia is the most radical Islamist group to emerge in Tunisia since secular autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was toppled in 2011. Its attacks have posed a challenge to the authority of the moderate Islamist-led government.

“We have discovered proof that the Ansar group is responsible for the assassinations of Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi and the attacks at Mount Chaambi,” Larayedh told reporters.

“We have decided to officially classify this group as a terrorist group. Anyone belonging to it must face judicial consequences,” he said.

Ansar leader Saifallah Benahssine, also known as Abu Iyadh, is a former al Qaeda fighter in Afghanistan sought by police for allegedly inciting an attack on the U.S. embassy in Tunis in September 2012.

Four people were killed in those disturbances, which began as a protest over a film that mocked the Prophet Mohammad.

Ansar al-Sharia has been suspected in the two assassinations and violent attacks in the Mount Chaambi area near the Algerian border, including the killing of eight soldiers last month.

Those killings and the assassinations of leftist secular leaders Belaid in February and Brahmi in July plunged Tunisia into political turmoil which political leaders are struggling to resolve. Police said the two politicians were killed with the same gun.

The Tunisian military has carried out air strikes this month on Islamist militants holed up in the Mount Chaambi area, scene of a hunt for jihadi fighters since December.

Secular opposition critics have accused Tunisia’s Islamist-led government, which until now had refrained from calling Ansar al-Sharia a terrorist group, of laxity in fighting jihadi militants sowing insecurity in the country.

(Reuters)

{{Twenty-four people were killed in Mali’s riverside capital Bamako on Wednesday when torrential rains provoked flash floods that washed away homes in several neighborhoods, a government minister said.}}

“The heavy rains led to flooding … These floods caused 24 deaths,” Tiefing Konate, the country’s minister of internal security and civilian protection, said in a statement distributed to local media.

Bankoni, Taliko, Lafiabougou, Djicoroni Woyowayanko, Lafiabougou Bougouba and Bougoudani neighborhoods were all hit by floods during rain storms that lasted most of the day. Nineteen people died in Taliko alone, the statement said.

Parts of Bamako, a city of around 2 million people on the Niger River, flood regularly during the West African nation’s June-to-October rainy season. Deaths are a relatively common occurrence.

Some of the worst damage during Wednesday’s flooding occurred in areas where houses had been built on land reserved for drainage, a Reuters witness said.

{{Thousands of civilians have fled to the Central African Republic’s main international airport in order to escape from former rebel fighters, occupying the tarmac for 18 hours as a sign of protest, witnesses and officials say.}}

The Central African Republic has descended into violence since Seleka rebels swept into Bangui in March, toppling President Francois Bozize and unleashing a wave of violence that new leader Michel Djotodia has failed to control.

Residents of the Boeing quarter, located adjacent to the capital’s M’poko airport, began fleeing their homes on Tuesday night after Seleka fighters starting firing in the neighbourhood.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 people gathered at the airport, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Peacekeepers present at the airport intervened on Wednesday, firing water cannon and tear gas to disperse the crowd after some protesters began throwing stones at them.

By late afternoon, the runway had been cleared, government officials and peacekeepers said, but thousands returned to reoccupy it on Thursday.

“There were no deaths, just a few wounded. But the situation is under control,” new security and public order minister Josue Binoua said of the clearing on Wednesday.

The occupation of the airport kept several flights, including one run by Morocco’s national carrier Royal Air Maroc, from landing.

A senior officer with the Central African regional peacekeeping mission based at the airport said the thousands of civilians who fled there overnight had refused to leave the tarmac.

“They came here because they are afraid,” he said. The peacekeepers were forced to intervene to stop Seleka fighters from entering, he said.

Residents of the Boeing neighbourhood said that what started as an evacuation had become a protest against the state of lawlessness.

“Our presence here at the airport has one goal – to get the world’s attention. Because we are fed up with these Seleka,” said Antoine Gazama.

Seleka banned from Bangui

Seleka, a grouping of five rebel movements that Djotodia used to lead, has repeatedly raided rural villages and Bangui neighbourhoods under the pretext of searching for weapons caches and armed Bozize loyalists.

Human rights groups say they are responsible for widespread looting, torture and summary executions.

The security minister said the airport occupation forced President Djotodia to call an emergency meeting during which the government decided to ban Seleka from entering Bangui neighbourhoods.

“Only the forces of order, notably the police and gendarmes, are authorised to ensure and reestablish order in the country and particularly in the city of Bangui,” Binoua said.

Moments earlier, Djotodia had ordered Seleka forces based in the northern Bangui neighbourhood of Boy-Rabe to return to their bases and allow the police and gendarmes to move in.

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