Nigeria - Trying To Deal With The Devil

The Nigerian government admits that they have people talking to Boko Haram leaders, but don’t know when, if ever, any results will be achieved or announced. Boko Haram leadership does not appear to control all groups operating as “Boko Haram” and many Boko Haram want victory (a religious dictatorship for all of Nigeria) or death. Boko Haram gunmen continue to operate in the northeast terrorizing the rural population. Boko Haram is still able to operate in the cities, but at a much lower level than before May, when the army began a major offensive against the Islamic terror group. Some local leaders (tribal, religious and elected) are trying to work with Boko Haram but that is proving difficult because Boko Haram is dominated by religious fanatics and leaders who are quick to feud with each other. This sort of internal bickering means that Boko Haram has little staying power, but for the next year or two it will remain a factor in northern politics. Boko Haram has already lost much local support because of its seeming random violence. While Boko Haram tries to spare local Moslems and go after only infidels (non-Moslems) enough Moslems get killed and suffer the economic losses to make Boko Haram less a savior and more of a curse for most northerners. Boko Haram won’t go away until the angry, and usually unemployed and uneducated young men who provide the new recruits get turned off. That hasn’t happened yet.

 

October 18, 2013: A major oil pipeline was repaired and restored 150,000 barrels a day of oil exports. This pipeline had been shut down five times in the last three months because of oil thieves and deliberate efforts to shut it down. The local tribes, angry at the government for stealing most of the oil income (little of that money gets back to where the oil is produced) blame the foreign oil companies that handle production. The foreigners are used because a Nigerian run firm would be crippled by corruption and not very productive. But the foreign firms depend on Nigerian police and troops for security and the Nigerians have not been able to prevent the damage. Corruption also reaches into the foreign oil companies with employees (usually locals) taking bribes to assist oil thieves. Nigeria is considered a very difficult and unprofitable place to operate oil fields and the foreign firms are always on the verge of leaving and some have already done so. What keeps some in Nigeria is access to offshore oil fields, which have far fewer security and vandalism problems. 

Despite increased scrutiny by the navy and police, pirate attacks are running at about 3-4 a week compared to 2-3 a week last year. A quarter of these attacks are major and involve kidnapping or cargo theft or both as well as the usual taking cash and portable property from the crew and ship. The pirates are operating off the Nigerian coast (the Gulf of Guinea) and in some of the major rivers and estuaries. The pirates are becoming more thorough in stripping a ship of valuable portable items and even kidnapping ship’s officers and taking them to hideouts ashore to be held for ransom. The gangs are apparently advised by expert fences on what equipment to look for because some of these

expensive shipboard electronics are showing up for sale in other parts of the world. The fences often ship the stuff out of Africa or sell it via the Internet to get a better price. As a result the pirates are gaining more money per ship raided and that persuades more land-based gangs to give piracy a try.

 

There are plenty of tankers and other merchant ships in the Gulf of Guinea and not all are paying attention to warnings about improving their security. While the Somali pirates could gain larger ransoms (sometimes over $10 million per ship) they have not been able to grab a ship in over a year because of more aggressive naval patrols and tighter security on the big ships. That has not happened on the west coast, and the gangs are happy if they can net several hundred thousand dollars in loot (including cargo transferred at sea to a pirate owned freighter or tanker) and ransoms per ship raided.

 

The shipping companies have to pay higher insurance premiums and deal with lower crew morale and are now incurring higher operating costs because of the need for better security. All these additional costs are passed on the countries adjacent to the Gulf of Guinea in the form of higher shipping rates.

  

Oil theft also remains a major problem about 150,000 barrels a day taken. About a quarter of that is now converted to kerosene in crude improvised refineries out in the bush. The refinery process used is dangerous for the operators and leaves a lot of pollution behind. These improvised refineries cost less than $5,000 to set up, employ 15-20 people and generate over $7,000 a month in profit. So the operators don’t mind if a lot of them are found by the security forces and destroyed.

  

Nine of the 37 states have adopted Islamic (sharia) law and try, with different degrees of success to enforce it. All nine sharia states are in the north and attempts to enforce lifestyle interpretations of sharia are unpopular. One example is a recent effort in Kano state to prohibit men who work in public from wearing shorts and tight sleeveless shirts. Some clerics consider this immodest and un-Islamic but in Kano police are going to try and force men to dress in a correct Islamic style.

  

October 13, 2013: In the north (Borno state) the army reported that it repulsed Boko Haram attacks against three towns (Bama, Gwoza and Pulka) and killed at least 40 of the terrorists. Outside Bama troops disabled a truck loaded with explosives which was apparently to be used by a suicide bomber.

  

October 9, 2013: In the north (Kano state) police raided and destroyed a Boko Haram bomb workshop. In nearby Adamawa state some fifty Boko Haram attacked a village and killed eight people but fled before the soldiers showed up.

 

October 8, 2013: In central Nigeria (Plateau state) tribal violence left over 16 dead when Fulani cattle thieves raided a village, killed ten civilians and were in turn attacked by police who killed six of the fleeting Fulani. The victims of these raids are often Christian farmers while the Fulani, who tend herds of cattle and are usually Moslem, are often the attackers. The Christian farmers and Moslem herders constantly argue over land and water.

Nigeria - Boko Haram War Moves To The Border

In northeastern Borno and Yobe states young men have formed a pro-government militia called the “Civilian JTF (Joint Task Force, after the military organization of the same name)” to provide security against Boko Haram and provide information to the security forces about who Boko Haram members are and where they are living. In response Boko Haram openly declared war on Civilian JTF members and threatened to come to their homes and kill them. Most Civilian JTF members cover their faces while assisting the security forces. While this threat certainly terrified some Civilian JTF members (who generally have no firearms), the leadership publicly defied the Boko Haram threats. 

The Civilian JTF often operate with heavily armed police or soldiers nearby (ready to move in arrest Boko Haram suspects the vigilantes identify or fire back if Boko Haram attack). The army has begun to use the volunteers to replace troops at checkpoints. There are still some armed soldiers nearby, in case Boko Haram tries to attack the civilians, but this new policy has enabled more checkpoints to be set up and more through searches of vehicles to be conducted. This makes it more difficult for Boko Haram to move around, plan and carry out attacks or to resupply the few men they still have in the cities.

 

Most of the people in the northeast are fed up with Boko Haram, even though they agree with the anti-corruption/clean government goals of the group. What has turned most people off are the terrorist tactics, which kill an increasing number of innocents. At the same time, the government has had some success in getting the army to restrain it troops, who often practiced what amounted to terrorism (random violence) against civilians perceived as hostile (or possibly hostile or simply uncooperative). Boko Haram is still a major threat, but the recent army pressure has forced the terrorists to scatter and spend a lot of time and effort regrouping, rather than making terror attacks in urban areas. The army will have to ease up on the curfews and numerous roadblocks soon, or the three northeastern states will suffer economic collapse and widespread hunger. 
 
Boko Haram temporarily took control of two towns (Bama and Gwoza) near the Cameroon border. Christians and government workers were given a week to get out after the Islamic terrorists arrived last week. The two towns are being looted by the Boko Haram men, who still maintain camps in the nearby hills. A month ago Boko Haram was chased out of its urban and suburban bases in the northeast by an army offensive. Several hundred Boko Haram members who avoided arrest or getting killed then set up operations in the mountain forests along the Cameroon border. This has included raiding villages in the thinly populated region, stealing cattle and anything else they could use. When they encountered Christian churches they burned them down and killed any clergy they found. The terrorists have moved deep into the mountains, set up camps and got in touch with Boko Haram camps known to exist across the border in Cameroon. The army visited some of the raided villages and is searching for the new Boko Haram camps. There are not enough troops to be everywhere and at all times along the border and this gave the Islamic terrorists the opportunity to spend a week plundering Bama and Gwoza. A month of Boko Haram violence along the border have sent several thousand people from their homes and fleeing, often for over a hundred kilometers, to Maiduguri. There are still some armed Boko Haram members in the cities, especially Maiduguri. There they are sheltered by family or sympathetic civilians and are difficult to root out. 
 
Recent army operations along the Cameroon border have found several camps, including one containing the computers and video cameras apparently used by Boko Haram to produce the videos they post on the Internet. Several of the camps contained vehicles, weapons and bomb making equipment. The Boko Haram men usually detected the approaching troops and fled on foot carrying what they could. The vehicles were too easy to spot from the air, so if the army had helicopters or aircraft overhead, or the vehicle routes were blocked the Islamic terrorists would abandon their vehicles. These sweeps have led to some arrests, including several wanted Boko Haram leaders.  
 
A government investigation into Boko Haram has concluded that about 8o percent of the members are from the Kanuri tribe. This ethnic group contains about four million people, with three million living in northeastern Nigeria and the rest in Chad, Niger and Cameroon. The leader of Boko Haram (Abubakar Shekau) is believed to be a Niger Kanuri, not Nigerian as was earlier thought. The Kanuri have lived in the region (centered on the city of Maiduguri in Borno State) for over 3,000 years. At times during this period the Kanuri had their own kingdom, but most of the time they were ruled by some stronger tribe as part of a local empire. Kanuri separatist movements generally died out after Nigeria became independent half a century ago. 
 
The Boko Haram men chased out of the urban areas (where they preferred to make attacks, to ensure maximum publicity) are still carrying out terrorist activities in rural areas where they have set up operations. Schools and Christians in the countryside are now being hit. There are not a lot of attacks, because there aren’t many Boko Haram out in the thinly populated countryside. But eventually news of these attacks makes its way back to the mass media and get publicized more widely. 
 
The government admitted that nearly half the 75 people prosecuted for terrorism in the last two years were not convicted. Most of those who escaped conviction did so because their fellow terrorists raided the prison they were in and freed the suspects before their trial could be concluded. These raids are still a major problem despite improved security around prisons and moving Boko Haram prisoners out of the north to Christian areas in the south. 
 
In the Niger River delta police arrested 473 oil thieves in the first half of the year. So far 32 have been convicted. Over two million liters (over half a million gallons) of oil and refined products (usually kerosene) were recovered and four small refineries were seized and destroyed. It is feared that the police are concentrating on small operators, as the larger oil theft and refining operations operate with the protection of senior government, police and military officials.
 
June 27, 2013: In central Nigeria (Plateau State) several days of violence between Christian and Moslem tribes has left at least 32 dead. This outburst was about cattle stealing and retaliatory attacks.
June 21, 2013: Northeastern Borno state announced it would hire several hundred armed security guards for primary and secondary schools to provide some protection against Boko Haram attacks. 
 
June 20, 2013: The military has banned the use of satellite phones in the three northeastern states currently under martial law. Boko Haram uses a lot of the cash it gets from extortion, kidnapping and robbery to buy and use the expensive satellite phones. These can be monitored, but by using code words they can still be useful. The new ban will not shut off the satellite phones in the northeast, but does make it illegal to sell them or the additional minutes needed to make them work. Boko Haram will now have to wait longer and pay more to have the phones and minutes cards smuggled in from Cameroon. Meanwhile the military will seize any satellite phones it finds in the northeast. Legitimate owners will eventually get them back.

Warplanes, troops in northeast Nigeria; mobile phones cut

Cellphone service was cut off Thursday in areas of northeast Nigeria as jet fighters streaked through the sky and more soldiers were deployed to fight Islamic extremists waging a brutal insurgency.

Witnesses saw low-flying Nigerian jet fighters over Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, which President Goodluck Jonathan placed under emergency rule on Tuesday along with Borno and Yobe states. But soldiers have met “no resistance” yet from extremists who have taken over villages and small towns in this region approaching the Sahara Desert, a military spokesman said.

An Associated Press journalist in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, has found cellphone services unavailable since early Thursday morning on all of the country’s major mobile phone carriers. Mobile phone numbers belonging to government officials and military officials there and in neighboring Yobe state could not be reached.

Mobile phones have become the only real communication device in Nigeria for both voice calls and the Internet, as the state-run telephone company collapsed years ago. By cutting off service at towers, the military could stop extremists from receiving warnings or intelligence ahead of their operations. Authorities said they had no information about the service cutoff or refused to comment.

Nigeria’s military and security forces have tracked fighters by their cellphone signals in the past as well, prompting extremists from the radical Islamic network known as Boko Haram to attack mobile phone towers in the region.

Under the president’s directive, soldiers have ultimate control over security matters in the three states, though his order allows civilian governments to remain in place. Over the past few days, witnesses and AP journalists have seen convoys of soldiers in trucks and buses moving through the region, as well as trucks carrying armored personnel carriers.

Nigeria’s military has promised a “massive deployment of men and resources” but has declined to specify the numbers involved.

Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, a military spokesman based in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, said more soldiers were en route to the region Thursday. Any assaults by ground forces also could be backed up by attack helicopters and jet fighter bombings, Gen. Olukolade said, though soldiers have yet to have a serious firefight with insurgents.

“The progress has been met with no resistance,” Gen. Olukolade told The Associated Press.

This new military campaign comes on top of a previous massive deployment of soldiers and police to the region. That deployment failed to stop violence by Islamic extremists, who have killed more than 1,600 people since 2010, according to an AP count.

Nigeria’s military has said Islamic fighters now use anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks to fight the nation’s soldiers, raising the possibility that the country’s already overstretched security forces are becoming outgunned.

With some soldiers sent to assist in the French-led anti-jihadist operation in Mali and others serving elsewhere in Nigeria dealing with other security challenges, the 76,000-man force is creaking under the pressure, said John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria.

“While the Islamist insurgents do not offer a viable political alternative and remain divided among themselves, the threat they pose to Nigeria’s political and economic future are significant, as Jonathan’s state of emergency recognizes,” Mr. Campbell wrote in an analysis published Wednesday by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Soldiers now will try to control an arid region of some 60,000 square miles, with powers to arrest anyone and take over any building.

Those powers also have led to worries about the military abusing and potentially killing civilians, which has happened repeatedly in the past and during the country’s current struggle with the Islamic insurgents.

Asked about what soldiers would do to prevent the death of civilians, Gen. Olukolade said the troops had been “fully briefed” on the rules of engagement, without offering any other details.

In Adamawa state on Thursday, the military announced a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew across the entire state. Life otherwise was calm, though heavily armed soldiers had taken over for police officers on the streets of the state capital, searching vehicles and questioning drivers.

But mobile phones remained without service for some in the region as Thursday night fell. Gen. Olukolade said that extremists might have sabotaged the lines. When asked whether the military or government could have ordered the lines to be turned off, the general said he “wasn’t aware of that.”

Reuben Mouka, a spokesman for the Nigerian Communications Commission, which oversees mobile phone carriers in Africa’s most populous nation, said he did not know about the services being cut off.

Funmilayo Omogbenigun, a spokeswoman for Nigeria’s dominant carrier, South Africa’s MTN Group Ltd., would only say, “No comment,” when asked if the government told her company to turn off service in the area.

Emeka Oparah, a spokesman for Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s operation in Nigeria, said he had no immediate information about the service outtage.

Army begins offensive against Boko Haram, raids Sambisa camp

Nigeria has begun an offensive against Boko Haram Islamists, raiding camps in a remote northeastern park, while more than 2,000 troops have been deployed to retake territory seized by the insurgents, a military source told AFP Thursday. “Our men raided some terrorist camps in the Sambisa Game Reserve,” in Borno state, said the senior officer who requested anonymity. “So far 2,000 troops have been deployed to Borno,” he added, declining to comment on the forces sent to the other affected states of Yobe and Adamawa.

Nigeria - We Know Where Your Family Lives

Boko Haram is making a major effort to get more cash via extortion, kidnapping and theft. The money is spent on weapons easily smuggled across the borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger in the north. Weapons are cheap at the moment, because of stolen government stuff still arriving from Libya and al Qaeda Islamic terrorists fleeing Mali eager to unload weapons they got out with for cash so they can seek sanctuary somewhere. Boko Haram still has plenty of new recruits, as increased army and police activity in the north, in addition to Boko Haram attacks, has done a lot of economic damage and increased the unemployment rate. Both Boko Haram and the security forces are fighting a dirty war. Boko Haram deliberately hunts down and kills government officials (especially local police, prison staff, border guards and the like). Soldiers and police are quick to pick anyone suspected (often with very little evidence) of being a member of Boko Haram or a sympathizer and later killing them.

 

More armed members enable Boko Haram to enforce more of their lifestyle rules. For example, in Borno state Boko Haram has, so far this year, forced the closure of 30 percent of the secular schools in the state. Boko Haram has gone from setting fire to schools at night to attacking them during the day and murdering teachers. 

 

The government continues to have financial problems. The main source of cash for the government is oil royalties. But violence, corruption and theft have cut oil production in the Niger River Delta some 30 percent in the last eight years and the decline continues. 

 

May 15, 2013: Another 2,000 soldiers have been sent to the northern city of Maiduguri, which has long been the center of Boko Haram strength. More roadblocks are being established and more raids conducted in neighborhoods suspected of harboring Boko Haram. The problem is that most police and soldiers still use the same old tactics of rounding up young men and killing them because they might be Boko Haram members. This just angers more northerners and makes it easier for Boko Haram to recruit.

 

May 14, 2013: The government declared a state of emergency in the northeastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. This is a form of martial law and makes it even easier for the security forces to do whatever they want. The state of emergency also allows the federal government to temporarily replace elected and appointed government officials. The three states affected are where most Boko Haram violence has been taking place. 

 

In central Nigeria (Kaduna and Benue states) continued violence between Christians and Moslems left at least 23 dead.

 

May 13, 2013: Boko Haram admitted that it is now deliberately kidnapping the wives and children of government officials (from jail guards to senior officials) to either force cooperation or just to obtain lots of cash. With this tactic Boko Haram hopes to eventually be able to use the threat of kidnapping to force judges, prosecutors and security force commanders to back off from going after the Islamic terrorists. Kidnapping, especially when families of corrupt officials are attacked is popular with most Nigerians as these thieves always seem to be able to buy their way out of prosecution for their crimes. 

 

May 12, 2013: Boko Haram kidnapped the wife and daughter of a Supreme Court judge. This took place in southern Edo State (Benin City). The same judge had a son kidnapped last September and paid $190,000 to get him freed.

Nigeria - Northern Frights

In the last month Boko Haram violence in the north has left nearly 300 dead. More worrisome is that some of these attacks involved over a hundred armed men using what appeared to be military tactics and more discipline than the terrorists have demonstrated before. There has been some training going on, and a lot of recruiting. The army has responded by being more violent to local civilians.

 

The war against Islamic terrorists (Boko Haram) in the north is not going well. The problem is with the security forces, which operate outside the law while trying to enforce it. The army and police, when faced with a major emergency (like the Boko Haram terror tactics) will react by arresting and torturing lots of people (especially young men, the most likely Boko Haram recruits), often killing them and denying what had been done. While Westerners act horrified at such behavior, that sort of thing did not largely disappear from the West until the last century or two. When a Nigerian joins the police or army they tend to accept the “traditional” way of doing things. But there are good reasons why many such traditions have been replaced. Indiscriminate torture and murder is not the most efficient way to deal with an outbreak of Islamic terrorism. Many senior government officials understand this, but getting the security forces to change these deadly customs has been very difficult (as have efforts to root out corruption in the army and police.) Meanwhile the security forces are murdering several hundred civilians a month with these brutal and indiscriminate tactics. 

 

Another problem with the Islamic terrorism is that it is largely confined to the Moslem north, where the economy and education levels are not as advanced as in the Christian south. The combination of ethnic and religious differences, in addition to the southerners having been in contact with the West longer, has left the north less educated and less able to deal with modern technological society. Thus the appeal of Boko Haram (whose name means, literally, “Western education is unholy”) for many of the tribes in the north. 

 

There are over 200 tribes in Nigerian, which adds another level of complexity for any government. While most of the tribes belong to half a dozen ethnically related coalitions, all consider themselves culturally different. Thus some tribes are very eager for Western education, economic progress and honest government. Other tribes swing in the opposite direction. Local politicians succeed in part by getting to know how each tribe in their area operates and making the most of that knowledge. Boko Haram is exploiting the Islamic conservatism (or fanaticism) of many northern tribes, as well as xenophobia (fear of outsiders) that is common in the north. 

 

While Islamic terrorists are difficult to find, oil thieves and their collaborators are easier to spot. The oil theft does not just take place in the Niger Delta (where the oil fields are) but throughout the country. There are other pipelines that carry refined product (especially diesel), and these are being plundered. The refined product is more profitable as you can sell it locally. This is risky as you have to drive around in tanker trucks, always one unexpected encounter with the police away from prison or worse. Sometimes the cops will take a bribe and sometimes they will kill you and steal your stolen oil.

May 7, 2013: In the northeastern town of Bama some 200 Boko Haram gunmen attacked the police station and a nearby prison. Some one hundred prisoners were released, most of them Boko Haram men. Over a hundred people died, about 40 of them police, soldiers and prison staff. 

 

In central Nigeria (Nasarawa state) a tribal militia ambushed a police convoy that was seeking to arrest members of the militia that had been forcing locals to join them. At least twenty policemen were killed. 

 

May 5, 2013: In the north (Adamawa state) Boko Haram was believed behind an attack on a Christian village, which left six dead in a local market and four dead in a nearby church. 

 

May 3, 2013: In central Nigeria (Taraba state) at least thirty people died when fighting broke out between Christians and Moslems. The trigger was the funeral procession that went through a Moslem neighborhood and some of the young men saw this as a provocation and attacked the Christian mourners. The violence escalated until enough police could show up to calm things down.

Nigerian Islamist raid in northeast town kills 55 - military

MAIDUGURI - Suspected members of the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram raided the northeastern town of Bama on Tuesday, leaving 55 people dead, the military said on Tuesday.

Boko Haram gunmen killed 22 police officers, 14 prison officials, two soldiers and four civilians, while 13 of the group's own members died, military spokesman Sagir Musa told Reuters.

Gunmen freed 105 prison members during the raid which began at around 5 a.m. (0400 GMT) and lasted almost five hours, Musa said. Bama's police station, military barracks and government buildings were burned to the ground, a Reuters witness saw.

Bama is a small, remote town in northeastern Borno state, where Boko Haram first launched an uprising in 2009.

The Boko Haram sect and offshoots such as the al Qaeda-linked Ansaru, as well as associated criminal networks, pose the main threat to stability in Africa's top energy producer.

Western governments are increasingly concerned about Nigerian militants linking up with other jihadist groups in the West African region.

Boko Haram wants to carve out an Islamic state in a country split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims. One of its chief demands is that its imprisoned members and family members are released and it has carried out several prison breaks.

Violence in Nigeria's north has shown no signs of letting up. Clashes between Islamists and a multinational force from Nigeria, Niger and Chad killed dozens of people last month.

A senator who visited the site said 228 people were killed, but the military puts the figure at 37.

Nigerian army says seven die in latest Islamist attack

Two Nigerian policemen and five attackers were killed in a midnight raid on a police station by suspected members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram in northeast Yobe state, the military said on Thursday.

The attack occurred less than a week after a bloody gun battle between Islamist insurgents and joint military forces from Nigeria, Chad and Niger in neighboring Borno state.

That clash may have been one of the deadliest since Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009. The Nigerian Red Cross is checking reports from locals that 187 people died, although government officials have said this figure is inflated.

Boko Haram and other Islamist groups, such as the al Qaeda-affiliated Ansaru, have become the greatest threat to security in Africa's second largest economy and top oil producer.

"At about midnight Thursday ... gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram terrorists attacked Joint Task Force location in Gashua town," spokesman for the Yobe military force Eli Lazarus said.

"Two police officers were killed in the attack while five of the suspected terrorists lost their lives during the encounter."

Lazarus said a rocket-propelled grenade, several vehicles, guns and ammunition had been recovered from the insurgents.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is awaiting a report from a panel he set up to offer an amnesty to the insurgents if they give up their struggle for an Islamic state.

Boko Haram has so far shown no interest in talks and two mediators have already pulled out.

The sect, which wants an Islamic state in a country divided roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, has killed hundreds of people in guerrilla-style attacks, mostly targeting security forces in its northeastern stronghold.

Nigeria - Northerners Are Not Fans Of The Ultra Violence

More evidence piles up that Boko Haram has been communicating with al Qaeda, particularly the branch in Mali. There were apparently Boko Haram members in Mali before French troops began clearing the Islamic terrorists out of northern Mali five weeks ago. The sources for this (captured documents and interrogations) also revealed a rift within Boko Haram. Many members are angry that the terror tactics have not produced much beyond a lot of mayhem and more Nigerians, particularly Moslems, who hate Boko Haram. That is why calls for peace talks since last November have created public disputes between Boko Haram leaders and factions. While Boko Haram has been able to carry out hundreds of attacks in the last few years, some of them quite spectacular bombings or gun battles, the group in no closer to its goal of ruling the north, much less all of Nigeria. While quite violent and militant, Boko Haram is still a small group, with a few thousand members (of varying skill and dedication) and a few hundred thousand northerners who offer support. Judging from the number of tips the police get and the subsequent raids on Boko Haram hideouts, many northerners are not fans of the ultra violence.

 

February 23, 2013: In central Nigeria (Taraba State) a football (soccer) game between a Moslem and a Christian team resulted in a riot that killed at least one person and left several buildings (including a church and a mosque) burned down

 

The government shut down a northern radio station that had broadcast conspiracy theories about polio vaccination being a plot by Christians to poison Moslems. 

 

In northern Gombe State gunmen on motorcycles fired on a group of men playing cards and killed five of them. Boko Haram is violently opposed to playing cards, listening to music, dancing and many other forms of entertainment. 

 

February 22, 2013: Iran denied that it had trained a Nigerian Shia cleric in espionage techniques and asked the man to recruit locals and gather information on the activities of Israelis and Americans in southwestern Nigeria (where the cleric, and many Shia) live. Nigerian police had revealed, two days easier, the arrest and interrogation of the three Shia Nigerian Moslems. The three had admitted spying for Iran and provided many details.

 

February 21, 2013: The government ordered a search in the north, along the Cameroon border, for seven French citizens kidnapped two days ago in Cameroon. 

 

February 20, 2013: In the northern city of Maiduguri people woke to find posters in several neighborhoods proclaiming that Boko Haram had not agreed to a ceasefire. Maiduguri is in Borno State and the state government had been reporting negotiations with Boko Haram for a ceasefire. Elsewhere in Maiduguri a suicide bomber attempted to attack some soldiers but only managed to kill himself and two civilians. 

 

February 19, 2013:  A French family (parents, an uncle and four children aged 5-12) were kidnapped in the north of Nigeria’s southern neighbor Cameroon. The hostages were apparently taken across the border to Nigeria. There are about 6,000 French citizens in Cameroon and all were subsequently warned to stay away from the Nigerian border. Boko Haram later denied they were responsible and no one has yet demanded any ransom or admitted they have the seven. 

 

February 18, 2013: Ansaru (for Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, or "Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa") claimed responsibility for the recent kidnapping seven foreign workers in northern Bauchi State. Ansaru is a Boko Haram splinter group that has become more active recently after first declaring its existence a year ago (and then largely disappearing from view). Ansaru objects to the many Moslems who are being killed by Boko Haram attacks and wants to concentrate on attacks that only kill foreigners or non-Moslem Nigerians. It is unclear how large Ansaru is, and how much violence within Boko Haram, if any, will result from the split. It is believed that there is considerable strife between Boko Haram leaders, with many strong-willed men, each with an armed following, trying to control the entire movement. At the moment most of these disagreements are put aside. Ansaru appears to be very small, perhaps only a hundred or so members, and more interested (than Boko Haram) in working closely with Islamic terror groups operating in the new terrorist sanctuary of northern Mali. This may encourage other extremist factions in Boko Haram to split off and create even more radical and violent groups like Ansaru. 

 

February 17, 2013: Pirates kidnapped six crewmen from a commercial ship off the coast and later demanded a ransom of $1.27 million. This is the fifth such incident this month. 

 

February 16, 2013: In northern Bauchi State armed men raided a construction site and kidnapped seven foreign workers (Briton, an Italian, a Greek and four Lebanese). 

 

February 15, 2013: In the northern city of Maiduguri two suicide bombers attempted to attack some soldiers but only managed to kill themselves and wound a civilian.

 

Reports from Mail indicate that the first 162 Nigerian troops sent there are not being adequately supplied and have had to ask for food from local leaders. Eventually 1,200 Nigerian troops will be in Mali to help with the peacekeeping.

Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab ‘merge’

Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, labeled as Africa’s most violent militant groups, are coordinating and synchronizing their efforts as they share funds and swap explosives, according to a US commander

 Soldiers of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) advance through the town of Afgoye to the west Mogadishu in this photo.

Three of Africa’s largest extremist groups are sharing funds and swapping explosives in what could signal a dangerous escalation of security threats on the continent, the commander of the U.S. military’s Africa Command said June 25.

Gen. Carter Ham said there were indications that Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), groups that he labeled as the continent’s most violent, are sharing money and explosive materials while training fighters together.

“Each of those three organizations is by itself a dangerous and worrisome threat,” Ham said at an African Center for Strategic Studies seminar for senior military and civilian officials from Africa, the United States and Europe, Reuters reported.

“What really concerns me are the indications that the three organizations are seeking to coordinate and synchronize their efforts,” Ham said. “That is a real problem for us and for African security in general.”

The United States classified three of the alleged leaders of Boko Haram, based in remote northeast Nigeria, as “foreign terrorists,” on June 20. But it declined to blacklist the entire organization to avoid elevating the group’s profile internationally.

Al-Shabaab is active in war-ravaged Somalia and has been blamed for attacks in Kenya. Last year it claimed responsibility for the death of Somali Interior Minister Abdi Shakur Sheikh Hassan. AQIM, an affiliate of al-Qaeda based in North Africa, is mainly a criminal organization operating in the Sahel region. It kidnaps westerners for ransom and aids Africa’s drug trade, according to intelligence officials.

‘West African Afghanistan’

U.S. and regional officials fear that a power vacuum in northern Mali following a military coup in March may open an expanded area of operations for militants. Some Western diplomats talk of the country becoming a “West African Afghanistan.”

Ham said AQIM was now operating “essentially unconstrained” throughout a large portion of northern Mali, where Islamists have imposed a harsh version of Shariah law. The group is a threat not only to the countries in the region, but also has “a desire and an intent to attack Americans as well. So that becomes a real problem,” Ham said.

Emphasizing that the U.S. military played mainly a supporting role in Africa, Ham said the United States was providing intelligence and logistical help in the hunt for Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, whose Lord’s Resistance Army is accused of abducting children to use as fighters and hacking off limbs of civilians.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague indicted Kony for crimes against humanity in 2005, and his case hit the headlines in March when a video titled “Kony 2012,” put out by a U.S. activist group and calling for his arrest, went viral across the Internet.