Boko
Haram's violence is now on par with ISIS. Is anyone in D.C. paying attention?
By Patrick Poole in
PJ Media
For much of its five-year long
insurgency in Nigeria costing thousands of lives, Boko Haram enjoyed no
sanction by the U.S. government. That changed just over a year ago when they
were finally designated a terrorist organization
by the State Department.
That notwithstanding, Boko Haram
continues to expand its terror campaign across the north of the country, now
controlling an area the size of Maryland.
On the other side of the conflict is
the hapless administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, which so far has
been unable to mount any substantive opposition to Boko Haram’s advance. With
presidential elections looming in February
and with Jonathan most likely running for reelection, there appears to be no
effective political counterweight that can put Nigeria on a course to mount a
counter-offensive against Boko Haram.
The strategic stakes involved for
the U.S. are extraordinary, but you would never be able to gauge that from the
absence of any alarm from the Obama administration or from either side of the
aisle in Congress. Not only does Nigeria have the continent’s largest
population at 173 million and the largest economy in Africa,
it also is the 10th largest oil producer in the world.
With a failed Libyan state (thanks
in no small part to the Obama administration), Egypt — the world’s largest Arab
country — fighting its own counterinsurgency in the Sinai, and Islamist
insurgencies inflamed from Nigeria to Kenya, the loss of Nigeria to jihadists
could be the tipping point to lose the whole of Africa.
With those factors in mind, here are
eight disturbing trends that warrant immediate attention for Nigeria’s fight
against Boko Haram.
1) Religious cleansing of Christians
is escalating: It’s remarkable that not even two
years ago senior State Department officials were denying before Congress
that there was any religious dimension to Boko Haram’s reign of terror.
Nigerian churches, which should be
open and inviting, are now having to install crash barriers and metal detectors.
And yet within just the past few months, more than 1,000 churches have
been ransacked and burned, and hundreds of thousands of Christians are being
driven from their homes.
For instance, in one October offensive in
just two northeastern states, Boko Haram reportedly burned down 185 churches
and forced 190,000 to flee. Last month they attacked Mubi, the second
largest city in Adamawa state, killing hundreds and destroying as they went.
Without the slightest hint of hypocrisy, Boko Haram renamed the city “Madinatul
Islam,” meaning, “city of Islam and peace.”
2) Massive population displacement: According to a UN press release, the
attack on Mubi displaced 13,000 Nigerians, who were forced to flee to
neighboring Cameroon, which is struggling to accommodate nearly 50,000 Nigerian
refugees and another 250,000 from the Central African Republic with extremely
scarce resources. Another 100,000 refugees have fled to Niger, with 30,000
arriving just in the past two months. There’s no guarantee of safety in taking
refuge in neighboring countries, as Boko Haram has staged cross-border attacks.
Inside Nigeria, it was reported that
400,000 refugees are in the Yolo area, severely taxing the city’s resources. Overall,
1.5 million Nigerians have been displaced by the violence, with 650,000 in the
northeast alone.
3) Disease and famine loom: The massive displacement has strained refugee centers past
the breaking point. Conditions in the camps are universally reported to be
unsanitary and breeding grounds for cholera and measles.
Because resources are stretched so thin, most refugees are left to fend for themselves
for shelter, food, and water. As winter begins to set in, observers on the
ground I have spoken to in the past few weeks warn of possible mass starvation
in the months ahead.
Food prices are high and most
refugees left their homes with nothing and have no reliable income. Because of
the security situation, few relief agencies have a permanent operating presence
in the most heavily affected areas. UN and private relief agencies are
requesting additional funds, and yet the Strategic Response Plan for Nigeria launched
in February was just 14 percent funded by mid-November.
4) Power grab by Muslim militias: In recent weeks there have been efforts by Islamic authorities and the emirs to stand up
Muslim militias in the north, ostensibly to fight Boko Haram. But there’s no guarantee
that these militias will always be opposed to Boko Haram, particularly if they
continue to advance against government forces (this has been true for rebel
groups in Syria that were initially opposed to ISIS and other hardline jihadist
groups, but ended up allying with or defecting to these same groups).
And it should be noted that Boko
Haram has not been the only actor targeting Christians in the north. Muslim
militias have been attacking Christian areas for years. Observers on
the ground express concern that the real-world effect of these militias will be
to create a parallel system to the Nigerian government and eventually grab
power in the north. Many Muslims in the north would love to break away from the
political influence and governmental control of the Nigerian government, where
they are forced to share power with the Christian majority. Thus, many of these
calls for Muslim militias by Islamic authorities are couched in openly
anti-government rhetoric.
5) Targeting of children: When nearly 300 school girls were abducted from Chibok in
April, it grabbed the world’s attention. Some were able to flee, but
reportedly 219 remain captive. Last month, Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau
said that the girls had converted to Islam and had been married off. When
Boko Harm stormed the town of Lassa on December 3, they carried away 20 more girls.
But while girls are targeted for
abduction, boys are targeted for killing. Just last month, dozens of young men
were killed when a suicide bomber dressed as a student bombed a morning assembly. This
targeting of school-age boys is a pattern for Boko Haram, such as when they attacked a boarding school in Yobe
state back in February where boys were shot, had their throats slit,
or were burned alive when their dorms were set on fire.
6) Women suicide bombers: Last Wednesday, two young girls in hijabs conducted a dual suicide bombing in a high-traffic textile
market in Kano city, the largest city in the north. Another 13-year-old girl
was found wearing an explosive vest
just hours later. Boko Haram is using young female suicide bombers at an increasing and disturbing rate,
though this tactic is not isolated
to their operations in Nigeria and has been endorsed elsewhere by preeminent
Islamic scholars like Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The use of female suicide
bombers requires security forces to target women as well as men, and then the
terror group is able to use the “abuse” of women being searched as a propaganda
ploy. What is especially troubling is a VICE News report last week that
indicated that Boko Haram has dispatched 50 female suicide bombers in the hopes
of inflicting 100,000 casualties.
7) Jihadist jail breaks: ISIS has used jail breaks to effective use in Iraq, busting
out al-Qaeda operatives of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison last year
and Mosul and Tikrit earlier this year.
Those released have helped swell the terror group’s ranks. So too with Boko
Haram, which staged a jail break earlier
this month that released 300 prisoners, and one on Sunday that freed another
200. The BBC reported in November that Boko Haram jail
breaks had at that time freed 2,251 prisoners, and that they had launched an
attack on a French cement plant and recovered a large cache of dynamite that
could be used for future jail breaks. With thousands of Boko Haram operatives
and supporters presently in jails, along with hardened criminals conditioned to
violence, targeting more jails will continue to swell their ranks.
8) Government impotence: One of the primary factors emboldening these power grabs
has been the ineffectiveness of the Nigerian military to roll back Boko Haram’s
gains. Relatively few small scale victories by government forces are
overshadowed by continuing gains by Boko Haram. To mask the problem, the Nigerian
government has issued a media blackout in many of
these areas and imposed a moratorium on foreign media visas. While President
Jonathan’s administration has come under fire for not adequately protecting its
own people, it has seemed to be more concerned about its public relations in Washington, D.C.
than in regaining the public trust of its own citizens.
A study published this week by the
International Centre for the Study of Radicalization found that Boko Haram was
responsible for 801 deaths last month alone, with more people killed by terror
attacks in Nigeria than in Syria or Afghanistan.
NBC News noted last week
that Boko Haram’s violence is now on par with ISIS in Iraq, which is why in
2013 Nigeria climbed to fourth in the Global Terrorism Index,
up from seventh in 2012 and twelfth in 2011. According to the Council on
Foreign Relations tracker, the violence in
Nigeria from May 2011 (when President Jonathan came into office) to November
2014 has claimed more than 26,000 lives. Now there are reports that Nigerian
special forces have uncovered plans by Boko
Haram to expand their attacks by targeting 25 communities in five different
states.
But you would never know how
desperate the situation is in Nigeria in light of the absence of any urgency or
alarm from the Obama administration or from Congress.
It’s worth repeating: Congress had to drag a
reluctant Clinton State Department kicking and screaming to
get Boko Haram designated in November 2013. Members of Congress also discovered
earlier this year that the Clinton State Department intentionally lied and downplayed the threat
from Boko Haram, and worked to kill bills in
both the House and the Senate calling for their designation in 2012.
At the same time, 21 American
academics sent a letter to Hillary
Clinton strongly arguing against
Boko Haram’s designation in response to the Department of Justice’s National
Security Division urging the State Department to do so.
But the November 2013 designation of
Boko Haram and the offensives by ISIS in Syria and Iraq have allowed Congress
to get distracted as well.
There are considerable national
security and other strategic interests for the United States in Nigeria. But as
the country teeters on the brink in the face of Boko Haram advances,
Washington, D.C. is asleep at the wheel. The risks of inattention and inaction
in Nigeria threaten to jeopardize the whole of Africa.
Patrick Poole is a
national security and terrorism correspondent for PJMedia.
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