Boko Haram Seizes Army Base In Nigeria Town Of Baga

” The militant group Boko Haram has seized a town and key multinational military base in north-eastern Nigeria, officials and eyewitnesses say.

  A senator in Borno state said troops had abandoned the base in the town of Baga after it was attacked on Saturday.

  Residents of Baga, who fled by boat to neighbouring Chad, said many people had been killed and the town set ablaze.

  Baga, scene of a Nigerian army massacre in 2013, was the last town in the Borno North area under government control.

  It hosted the base of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), made up of troops from Nigeria, Chad and Niger.

  Set up in 1998 to fight trans-border crime in the Lake Chad region, the force more recently took on Boko Haram.

  Boko Haram attacks towns and villages on…

In Sweden, The Land Of The Open Door, Anti-Muslim Sentiment Finds A Foothold

” As Khalif Samantar knelt for afternoon prayers at the Eskilstuna Islamic Dawa Center on Christmas Day, he sensed a growing heat and a low, rushing sound coming from a nearby hallway. He focused his mind on the ritual, only to realize seconds later that someone was shouting, “The mosque is on fire!”

  Mr. Samantar sprang through an open window and rushed through the snow in his stocking feet for help. Though about 70 people were inside the mosque at the time, no one was injured.

  The fire, which gutted the Dawa center, was the worst of three suspected arson attacks on mosques in Sweden over the last 10 days. In the same period, two freighters bearing hundreds of asylum seekers were abandoned by their crews off the coast of Italy, adding to a surge of more than…