Boko Haram militants have seized an unguarded town in northeast Nigeria without firing a shot, witnesses said yesterday, as the Islamic insurgency took a new turn –seizing and controlling territory.

No one was harmed in the takeover – a departure for Boko Haram, which has killed thousands since launching an uprising in 2009, including several massacres of civilians.

“They went preaching in the whole town, asking people to leave government work and join them to do the work of Allah,” said Musa Abdullahi, a trader who escaped Bara, in Yobe state. “People were afraid, but they said that they did not come to kill anybody but to preach”.

They went preaching in the whole town, asking people to join them to do the work of Allah

Boko Haram’s attacks appear to have shifted focus in recent weeks away from simply creating mayhem to taking ground and holding it.

Last month, the insurgents captured the remote farming town of Gwoza, along the Cameroon border, during heavy fighting. Abubakar Shekau, the group’s leader, declared in a video the town was now “Mus-lim territory”.

On Monday, the rebels attacked Bama, a larger town in northeastern Nigeria, and witnesses and security sources said by Tuesday they had seized much of it.

But yesterday the government of Borno state and local vigilante groups said Bama remained under government control. Defence spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade said by text message that this report was correct.

Controlling Bama would bring the rebels closer to the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, 70 km to the northwest, the birthplace of Boko Haram’s movement. Fears that Maiduguri could be the next target led the government to extend a curfew in place there to 7pm. until 6am – it previously started at 10pm.