By early afternoon the attackers had been beaten back, but not before dozens of soldiers had been killed, officials said, and a major military base to the north of the city had been taken by the insurgents, sending about 1,400 soldiers fleeing into the bush.
The attack on this city of more than two million people, a key commercial and administrative hub, began late Saturday night, with the militants from the Islamist insurgency, which already controls the territory surrounding Maiduguri, rushing in from at least two directions. Loud explosions could be heard in the center of the city, as well as small-arms fire and artillery in its suburbs. The attack represented a significant thrust forward in a creeping campaign that began last summer to encircle Maiduguri, officials said.
“Certainly this is the most serious attack yet,” said Kashim Shettima, the governor of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital. “We faced a really existential threat.” By early evening Maiduguri, a normally bustling metropolis of open-air markets and street-side stalls, was dead quiet, with a military curfew pushing all civilian vehicles off the streets. The only sound was the call to prayer from the city’s numerous mosques.
Earlier in the day, before being repulsed, the insurgents had once again demonstrated the tactical mettle that has allowed them to gain control of territory for hundreds of miles around Maiduguri. On Sunday they overwhelmed soldiers at one of the city’s principal military checkpoints, arriving in buses as if they were ordinary travelers, Mr. Shettima said.
“The soldiers were completely caught off guard,” he said. Before the soldiers realized who they were, the Boko Haram insurgents opened fire. “I believe they must have killed hundreds,” Mr. Shettima said as he tried to give an estimate of the military casualties. At the same time, the Islamists were attacking another position close to the city, straining the military’s resources in the area.
“They are becoming more and more sophisticated by the day,” added Mr. Shettima, who said he feared another attack on the city. “They have essentially put the town under siege. They have cut the town off from all routes. They are continuously squeezing us into a very tight corner.”
After the insurgents overwhelmed the soldiers, they moved to a checkpoint closer to the city. The military then called in warplanes, and officials said bombs dropped on insurgent positions turned the tide of the battle here, even as a town to the north, Monguno, was falling.
The attack on Maiduguri coincided with a visit by Secretary of State John Kerry to Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, for meetings with President Goodluck Jonathan and his challenger in the coming presidential election, Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general.
Amid mounting friction between the two countries over how best to fight Boko Haram — the relationship is so strained that the Nigerians canceled an American military training program in December — Mr. Kerry said the United States was prepared to do more to help the faltering Nigerian military.
But he warned that the level of American support would be influenced by the determination of Nigeria’s politicians to carry out a fair and peaceful election on Feb. 14. American officials also fear that the Nigerian military has been infiltrated by Boko Haram, a claim angrily denied by the Nigerians.
In Maiduguri, as the attack progressed on Sunday, witnesses reported seeing hundreds of residents fleeing the suburbs and rushing toward the city’s center. The witnesses also reported seeing some Nigerian troops moving away from the fighting, a response that is not uncommon when they clash with insurgents.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes, and at least 10,000 have been killed over the course of the Islamists’ insurgency, now stretching into its sixth year.
How the United States plans to help Nigeria regain the initiative against the insurgents remains unclear. Boko Haram’s abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls last spring provoked outrage in the United States and Europe. But a breakdown in trust between the United States’ and Nigeria’s militaries has hampered cooperation against Boko Haram, as have fears that giving heavy weapons to Nigerian forces could lead to human rights abuses.
After a meeting with his British counterpart this month, Mr. Kerry said the attacks by Boko Haram constituted war crimes and asserted that the United States was planning a “special initiative” to counter the group.
But Mr. Kerry has not provided details about what that initiative is, when it might be undertaken or how the cooperation between the two militaries might be improved.
He said there was evidence that the militants from the Islamic State group, which has declared a caliphate in eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, were now trying to forge alliances with terrorist groups in Africa.
“It is obviously a concern that they may try more aggressively to try to spread to countries in center and southern and other parts of Africa,” Mr. Kerry said. He added that there was no indication as yet that Boko Haram had formally affiliated itself with the Islamic State.
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Adam Nossiter reported from Maiduguri, and Michael R. Gordon from Lagos, Nigeria. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/world/africa/boko-haram-attacks-major-nigerian-city-in-a-sustained-assault.html?_r=0(abridged)
