Boko Haram, the deadly Islamist terrorist group from northeastern Nigeria, has struck again. Over 129 female pupils were abducted on 14 April when Boko Haram gunmen stormed a boarding school in Chibok, Borno state. The soldier and police officer on duty were killed after a lengthy gun battle with the Islamist insurgents. In a rescue operation, the Nigerian military confirmed that it has freed majority of the female pupils, with eight others still missing. In a separate attack by Boko Haram, twin bomb blasts at a bus station in Nigeria’s capital killed at least 71 people and wounded 124 others.
Boko Haram, the deadly Islamist terrorist group from northeastern Nigeria, has struck again. Over 129 female pupils were abducted on 14 April when Boko Haram gunmen stormed a boarding school in Chibok, Borno state. The soldier and police officer on duty were killed after a lengthy gun battle with the Islamist insurgents. In a rescue operation, the Nigerian military confirmed that it has freed majority of the female pupils, with eight others still missing. In a separate attack by Boko Haram, twin bomb blasts at a bus station in Nigeria’s capital killed at least 71 people and wounded 124 others.
This is not the first time that Boko Haram has attacked secondary school pupils in northeastern Nigeria. On 6 July 2013, Boko Haram insurgents attacked a boarding school in Potiskum, northeastern Nigeria, killing 41 people (29 students were burned alive), and torching administrative blocks and student hostels. Following the violent attacks, Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s supreme leader, released a 15-minute video on YouTube expressing ‘full support’ of the attacks. Shekau warned that ‘School teachers who are teaching Western education: We will kill them! We will kill them!’ Shekau also denied he is negotiating a ceasefire with the Nigerian government: ‘We will not enter into any agreement with non-believers or the Nigerian government,’ he said, speaking in his native Hausa language. Shekau added that ‘The Quran teaches that we must shun democracy, we must shun Western education, and we must shun the constitution.’ In early March, roughly 85 secondary schools were closed and over 120,000 pupils were sent home by the Borno state government following increasing attacks on schools by Boko Haram.
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According to estimates by Human Rights Organizations, Boko Haram has killed over 10,000 people since its founding in 2002. In 2014 alone, more than 1,500 people have lost their lives in attacks by Boko Haram, whose name means ‘Western education is forbidden’ in the local Hausa language. In the already highly polarized Nigeria, where more than 150 million people are divided into nearly 350 ethnic groups, out of which about 50 percent are Muslim and 40 percent are Christian, the potential for violent escalation along ethno-religious lines looms large. Attempts at negotiating with Boko Haram's senior leadership have stalled due to the faceless and factionalized leadership of the group’s different cells, as well as due to the heavy-handedness of the Nigerian state and growing distrust between the negotiators.
Boko Haram was led by Mohammed Yusuf, the group's founder. Following the sectarian violence of 2009, where over 800 of Boko Haram members were killed, Yusuf died while under police custody. His death and the bloodletting of Boko Haram’s members pushed the movement to transform itself into a network of underground cells with a hidden leadership – a situation that makes any military solution illusory. The movement went dormant for a year before re-emerging in 2010 with increasingly sophisticated attacks that were found to be connected to the growing foreign support of global Jihadist groups like Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Somali-based Al-Shabaab, as well as the al-Muntada Trust Fund, and the Islamic World Society.
Boko Haram's ideology is embedded in radical Salafism. Group members view it as their necessary duty and goal to engage in a violent struggle against the ‘enemies of Islam,’ both at home and abroad. Its members see the overthrow of secular governments as justified since their rulers are viewed as accepting or leaning toward the ways of Islam's enemies.
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One of Boko Haram’s major goals is to become a key player in global jihad, which has been fought by transnational terrorist groups like the Islamic Maghreb's Al-Qaeda, its affiliates in Mali and in the entire Sahel, and Somali-based Al-Shabaab. It will not be surprising if Boko Haram's intentions are to exploit conflicted areas and to join the mujahedin (warriors of the jihad) in foreign and Arab countries like Chechnya and Afghanistan. Members of Boko Haram have been known to fight in Mali alongside groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and it would be a major threat to the Egyptian regime and to Israel if they joined jihadist groups in the Sinai Peninsula.
A major shift in Boko Haram's ideology and strategic goals could be seen in the 2011 car bombing of the UN building of Abuja. This was the first time that Boko Haram attacked a distinctly non-Nigerian target, following the Al-Qaeda attacks of UN targets in Algeria and the Al-Shabaab UN attacks in Somalia. In 2012, the US State Department realized the increasing threat posed by Boko Haram, adding its current leader, Abubakar Shekau, to the list of specially designated global terrorists. In 2013, the US designated Boko Haram and its splinter group, Ansaru, as foreign terrorist organisations. If Boko Haram decides to enhance its global activity beyond the boundaries of Nigeria, it will pose a serious threat to the jihadist targets. As mentioned above, the Sinai Peninsula as well as the Syrian battlefield could well be a concern for the neighboring countries.
The Nigerian government established a special Joint Military Task Force (JTF) to mount aggressive pursuit and to crackdown on Boko Haram's members and the group's major hideouts. In the largest military deployment since the 1960s Nigerian Civil War, the Nigerian government ordered 8,000 troops to the restive northern region in a direct offensive against Boko Haram. It seems, however, that the problem is not just a local Nigerian one anymore, but has developed enough to concern neighbouring West African states, the US among other nations as well. There is a need for an intelligence-led strategy to better confront Boko Haram’s largely localised terrorist activities and its global aspirations. In addition, there is a necessity for greater international cooperation in terms of identifying and intersecting Boko Haram's growing external funding, weapons sources, and training which is crucial to the group’s operational capabilities.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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