Militants wearing army uniforms have murdered 19 people at checkpoints on a road in northeastern Nigeria's Borno state.  The suspected Boko Haram Islamists stopped motorists, forced the people out of their cars, before shooting them or hacking them to death on the spot.

“We were asked to get out of our vehicles and lie face down by nine men dressed as soldiers who blocked the road,” said one man who was moments away from being killed by the rebels who want to create an Islamic state ruled by a particularly bloody interpretation of Sharia law. 

“They shot dead five people and went about slaughtering 14 others before someone called them on the phone that soldiers were heading their way,” he said.

The Boko Haram escaped on motorcycles.  Northeastern Nigeria remains under a state of emergency.  But one area managed to free itself from the terrorists.

Maiduguri City is once against bustling, after four years of cowering in fear of the radicals and their forced amputations.  The governor built a network of informants by paying US$100 a month to young people sick of the religious oppression and violence.  Local security forces and vigiliantes used the tips to fight the Islamists and reclaim the city of two million people.