The jihadists have switched from holding towns to waging guerrilla war
Jul 11th 2015 | LAGOS | From the print edition

Timekeeper

POLITICIANS often promise more than they deliver, but those in Nigeria bit off more than most when they campaigned on a pledge to “defeat Boko Haram”. Six weeks after the inauguration of its new president, Muhammadu Buhari, the government must be wishing it had promised something less ambitious.

Boko Haram seemed to be on the ropes a few months ago. Despite its threats to disrupt the election at the end of March, the vote was largely peaceful, and the militants had been pushed back from many of the towns they had captured. Yet in recent weeks the group has struck back from its remote redoubts, killing more than 200 people in the week to July 5th (and more since then) in a series of attacks across the north.

Bombs were detonated in the major cities of Jos and Kano, neither of which had been attacked since February. Boko Haram also showed that it can still operate across borders: two suicide bombers struck Chad’s hitherto unscathed capital, N’Djamena, in mid-June, blowing themselves up outside police headquarters, killing 34 people. Horseback and motorbike-mounted raiders attacked another neighbour, Niger, twice in two weeks.

The recent attacks suggest that since their ejection from urban areas, Boko Haram jihadis have regrouped in the forests and mountains along the border with Cameroon, or have melted into local populations disguised as merchants or beggars. Many of its 6,000 fighters are still active and its leadership is intact. The group may lack the sophistication to administer territory, but it has been honing its skill at hit-and-run attacks since 2009.

Nigeria’s army, by contrast, is finding counter-insurgency far more difficult than merely liberating captured towns. It has also lost much of the support that contributed to its victories earlier this year. Mercenaries who helped turn the tide in the north-east have been sent home and Chadian soldiers have pulled back over the border. Morale among poorly equipped Nigerian troops is plummeting again. “[It is becoming] the way it used to be before—[when] one man [was issued with just] one bullet [per target]—it’s just the same now,” says one military man.

Boko Haram is not a Fulani organisation nor is it a partisan political organisation. I will concede that, at most, there could have been elements who assisted them out of frustration with the GEJ regime but the group itself is an Islamist group with no partisan preferences.

This is not the end of Boko Haram. It will simply morph into what it used to be: a terror group capable of staging bomb attacks but incapable of holding large swathes of territory.

WombRaiders:
.

DaBullIT:
Last struggle by a snake that lost its head

atlwireles:
Good to know the economist is now feeling sorry for themselves.

DaBullIT:
Last struggle by a snake that lost its head

ECOTERRORS:
We know that Nigeria is on auto pilot so I'm not suprised

WombRaiders:
Has any one of you ever bothered to wonder how it was possible for ISIS which is composed of minority Sunni Muslims in Iraq was able to overrun vast territories of that country inspite of US arming, training and providing Intel to Iraq Security forces? This is opposite what Jonathan administration got by way of support from the Obama White House rather the Obama administration went along way to blocking alternatives to securing much needed weapons at the same time refused to share intel to the Nigerian Security forces and took it up a notch by refusing to designate Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organizaion - a categorization that would have helped to block financing and support to the group.

In spite of all these challenges, the "clueless" Jonathan was at one time able to beat Boko Haram into a retreat to the Camerounian mountain borders where they were contained before they resurfaced again befor Jonathan ordered a full scale war which saw recapturing of local govts from the insurgents. Jonathan achieved all this without US , Uk and western military assistance.

But look at what we have in Iraq where US, has although refused to categorize ISIS as an FTO, but still supplies weapons and conducts air raids on ISIS positions. ISIS inspite of all this is still waxing strong and claiming more territory.

It also baffles me that the US govt will claim that one of ISIS principal fund sources is from captured Iraqi oil fields. How is ISIS shipping oil talk less of still able to maintain drilling operations without US connivance? What is stopping Obama from bombing the gas lines?

Iraq is mostly landlocked with only a small portion to the south bordering to the Gulf of Arabia, ISIS is thus still shipping oil via the gas pipelines through Turkey. Why is there not an embargo on Iraqi oil shipped from captured territory?

Back to Nigeria, it is very obvious why we are witnessing more expansion of Boko attacks into areas they had only sleeper cells and this is to blackmail Nigerians into accepting a peace deal and subsequent amnesty package for Boko Haram.

Boko Haram have stated their intention to swap the phantom Chibok girls in exchange for 16 of their top commanders in custody. This is just another attempt at using the Chibok scam to advance another agenda.

Buhari knows what he is doing.

Do not take the Economists seriously because their aim is to portray Buhari as merely incompetent when the truth is that all these bombings and Boko Haram expansion is to calculated towards forcing a negotiation option down our throats.

If Buhari truly wants to end Boko Haram he has all the weapons, intel and resources at his disposal to achieve this but he won't because after all "a fight against Boko Haram is an attack on the north".

bogs4real:


I don't need to get too historical to know that the spate of bombings since Buhari took charge is politically motivated....a masterpiece to blackmail the newly emerged government, am sure Buhari is restoring sanity in the millitary and it is only a matter of time before Book haram vaporise

WombRaiders:


You veered off completely!

The bombs are from Buhari to us to force down an amnesty package for his Bokos for a job well done in getting him into power.

That is my point.

Read it again slowly.

bogs4real:

Be careful of ur libel.....even GEJ quote me anywhere never ruled out negotiating with the Boko Haram organisation, the overtures just never went well

WombRaiders:


Buhari is behind Boko Haram.

Make sure you tell him that for me.

WombRaiders:


Buhari is behind Boko Haram.

Make sure you tell him that for me.

4Play:


I don't know why you guys insist on seeing everything though the prism of partisan politics with your elaborate conspiracy theories. Boko Haram is an Islamist group that is not interested in partisan politics. It will continue to terrorise Nigerians whether APC, PDP, APGA, Labour, e.t.c is in power. The political affiliation of the occupant of Aso Rock is it immaterial to its objectives.

The way to fight Boko Haram is by improved military and intelligence gathering capabilities aligned to an economic programme to revitalise the North-East. There might be a few Boko fighters amenable to an amnesty programme which would need to be explored. However,
before any non-military solutions are explored, our security capability needs to be seriously upgraded. My disappointment with the current regime is that it is moving too slow and seems to be almost as tone-deaf as the previous regime.

4Play:


I don't know why you guys insist on seeing everything though the prism of partisan politics with your elaborate conspiracy theories. Boko Haram is an Islamist group that is not interested in partisan politics. It will continue to terrorise Nigerians whether APC, PDP, APGA, Labour, e.t.c is in power. The political affiliation of the occupant of Aso Rock is it immaterial to its objectives.

The way to fight Boko Haram is by improved military and intelligence gathering capabilities aligned to an economic programme to revitalise the North-East. There might be a few Boko fighters amenable to an amnesty programme which would need to be explored. However,
before any non-military solutions are explored, our security capability needs to be seriously upgraded. My disappointment with the current regime is that it is moving too slow and seems to be almost as tone-deaf as the previous regime.

4Play:


I don't know why you guys insist on seeing everything though the prism of partisan politics with your elaborate conspiracy theories. Boko Haram is an Islamist group that is not interested in partisan politics. It will continue to terrorise Nigerians whether APC, PDP, APGA, Labour, e.t.c is in power. The political affiliation of the occupant of Aso Rock is it immaterial to its objectives.

The way to fight Boko Haram is by improved military and intelligence gathering capabilities aligned to an economic programme to revitalise the North-East. There might be a few Boko fighters amenable to an amnesty programme which would need to be explored. However,
before any non-military solutions are explored, our security capability needs to be seriously upgraded. My disappointment with the current regime is that it is moving too slow and seems to be almost as tone-deaf as the previous regime.

bogs4real:


From your insightfulness how fast is this regime supposed to move?

WombRaiders:


More like last mission of the muhajadeens

4Play:


Ostrich mentality. Bury your head in the sand and proclaim to all and sundry that the upsurge in bomb attacks is "good" news.

DaBullIT:


Rightly said . If Boko Haram can be defeated now , i am sure for the next 40 years we won't hear of insurgency , but Nigerian Armed forces need to seek help , support and they need to be crude .

One or three possible scenarios will play out ,

1 Boko haram ends completely and the North / Blood thirsty politicians sponsoring terror will be angry at Buhari

2 Boko haram activity reduces , some miscreants may bomb or assasinate once in a while

3 When that's done and over with , It's Likely Biafra and N-D terrorist restart their activities in the creeks and that would spell a lot of trouble for them,

WombRaiders:


Boko Haram or rather what they represent can never ever be defeated physically as long as Islam still exists.

DaBullIT:


Like i suggested in a recent post , there'll be some spill over some would still hold grudges, however they will be rendered useless and extinct in Nigeria , Anything's possible with the right mindset and the right resources

WombRaiders:


You think Buhari wants to make them extinct and irrelevant?

I pity you for believing in this lie called change.

Buhari has brought military operations against the group to a complete halt and has a hand in encouraging the spate of bomb blasts to force the likes of you to accept negotiations and amnesty for boko Haram.

The bombings are meant to blackmail you into accepting any option in stopping the violence if that includes an amnesty so be it.

Or why do you think they are called terrorists? It is because they employ terror to get their way.

Buhari will negotiate with boko haram and grant them amnesty and the group will be reformed to be a powerful power bloc in the north.

Buhari has not come to destroy them but to give them legitimacy.