Driven from towns, Nigeria extremists hit villages

A businessman in northeast Nigeria ripped off his pajamas and jumped out a window, hoping his dark skin would not be visible to the people attacking his village, Hearing his neighbors' screams around midnight. Like many villages in the region in recent weeks, Mbitiku was under attack from militants competing with the government for support. Before the attack, the insurgents sent threatening letters to the village ordering young men to join their Boko Haram insurgency. "Boko Haram people were going from one house to the other slaughtering people by slicing their throats," the survivor told The Associated Press of the Nov. 4 attack. He insisted on anonymity for fear of being targeted by the extremists. Security forces have pushed Boko Haram out of cities and towns in northeastern Nigeria in recent months but the militants are now terrorizing rural villages to prevent them from supporting security forces, according to Thomas Hansen, an Africa analyst for Control Risks.