Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                            Radical Islam in Nigeria

                                            Boko Haram’s History:
                                            Radical Islam in Nigeria
                                            Written by Christopher Wall

                                                           This system led to a bifurcated country, with
Contextualizing Boko                                       a productive south flush with oil wealth and
                                                           an impoverished north, struggling to reconcile
Haram Beyond Chibok                                        modernization with the dictates of the orthodox and
                                                           rapacious power brokers. These differences widened
After months of setbacks, the Islamic State of Iraq        with the British withdrawal, giving Nigeria a split
and Syria (ISIS) received an important PR boost when       identity. Two political cultures, informed by competing
the Nigerian terror-cum-insurgent group Boko Haram         values and interests, created some of the starkest
declared its allegiance to ISIS in March 2015. The         economic and political contradictions for a modern
pledge, more symbolic than tangible, enabled ISIS to       polity. With a history laden with coups, dictatorships,
continue claiming it was expanding, despite losing         political violence, and repression, today Nigeria is
large amounts of territory since September 2014. As        concomitantly the richest country in West Africa and
many commentators noted, from an optics perspective,       one of the most violent, all the while transitioning into
the move made sense. Both groups shared a similar          an institutionalized democracy.
Salafist-ideology, an affinity for violence against non-
Muslims and Muslims alike, and a desire to establish       No group epitomizes this systemic contradiction like
a global caliphate uniting all Muslims. The similarities   Boko Haram. Existing on the periphery of the public’s
ended there, however.                                      conscious for most of its history, Boko Haram formed
                                                           in 2002 around the Islamic scholar, Muhammad Yusuf.
Although Boko Haram was funded in part by                  Yusuf preached a rigid and exclusionist doctrine,
Osama bin Laden in 2002, in many ways, it was              rejecting all forms of western culture and advocating
a product of Nigeria’s colonization experience             a geocentric model of the universe and claiming that
by the British and their inability to subdue the           the earth was flat. These beliefs earned it the nickname
areas formerly under the Sokoto Caliphate in               “Boko Haram” or “Western Education is Forbidden” in
Northern Nigeria.                                          the local Hausa language. From 2003 until July 2009,
                                                           Yusuf concentrated on developing Boko Haram’s
After assuming control of the country in 1861, the         organizational structure, recruiting from Nigeria’s poor,
British failed to modernize the northern territories and   and currying favors with politicians in the northern half
instead co-opted the exhausted Islamic institution left    of the country to cement his position as a power broker
by the Sokoto caliphate with capricious warlords.          and one of the wealthiest men in Northern Nigeria. This
                                                           changed in July 2009 when he launched an uprising

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                            Radical Islam in Nigeria

that killed 800 people over several days. In the ensuing   What is interesting about the Maitatsine Riots is
conflagration, Nigerian security forces captured,          that two curious historical wrinkles bind those
tortured, and killed Yusuf.                                events to Boko Haram. First, the current President
                                                           of Nigeria, Muhamadu Buhari participated in the
At the time, people mistakenly believed that Nigeria       counterinsurgency campaigns of the 1980s. Second,
had weathered the Boko Haram menace. For the next          Muhammad Yusuf’s uncle, the man that raised him, also
year and a half, Boko Haram experienced factional          participated in the conflict as a lieutenant in Mawra’s
vicissitudes, as surviving members fought against          movements.
each other to replace Yusuf. During this time, the group
established international ties with terror groups across   These multiple threads embody interesting stories
the Maghreb and Sahel, thereby becoming stronger           unto themselves, but only achieve their true value
in the process. By 2011, the group reorganized around      when united to tell the story of Boko Haram. This brief
Abubaker Shekau and initiated the deadliest phase of       analysis will look at the various events that created
its insurgency.                                            the group, their historical context, and the events
                                                           that followed. What will emerge is that Boko Haram
                                                           is more than an ISIS-wannabe and that their violence
                                                           is far worse than the kidnapping of the Chibok girls in
                                                           April 2014 suggests. Indeed, the researcher’s goal in
                                                           this short presentation is to encourage further study
                                                           into the Boko Haram phenomenon, illustrate analytical
                                                           unknowns, and to help curious observers demystify the
                                                           insurgency.

                                                           Boko Haram, its
                                                           Antecedents, and its
        The kidnapped Chibok girls — Courtesy of Reuters

This brief historical account only encompasses the
most accessible details of the group: the information      Evolution
that is understood but that never reaches the
undercurrent which animates the violence plaguing          Boko Haram formed in 2002, but its organizational
Nigeria. When looking at Nigeria’s history since           roots date back to the time of the Maitatsine riots
decolonization, Boko Haram is only the continuation of     of the 1980s. In December 1980, a radical preacher
violent movements that have plagued the North every        named Mohammad Marwa from Northern Cameroon
couple of decades, suggesting structural conditions        instigated his followers to rise up against the Nigerian
that exist independently of democratic governance          state. Marwa, nicknamed Maitatsine (“the one who
in Abuja or the sectarian character of the country’s       damns” in Hausa), considered himself a prophet and
leadership. Indeed, contextualizing Boko Haram in this     spoke against western culture and education. When
manner allows researchers to explore linkages in the       the first riots began in 1980, Muhammed Yusuf’s uncle
present to the Maitatsine Uprisings that convulsed         served as one of Maitatsine’s lieutenants. He survived
Northern Nigeria in the 1980s. In that instance, a         the subsequent riots put down by General Muhammadu
radical preacher from Northern Cameroon named              Buhari and would go on to raise his new nephew.
Mohamad Marwa organized a massive uprising in Kano
in December 1980. Subsequent uprisings occurred            In 2002, Osama bin Laden sent $3 million to Nigeria to
between 1982 and 1985.                                     help form a terrorist group in that country. With help

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                           Radical Islam in Nigeria

from al-Qaeda, Muhammed Yusuf co-opted a local            Muhammed Yusuf first moved his followers to the
youth group at a university in Maiduguri, starting Boko   countryside where he spent months indoctrinating
Haram. Yusuf preached a radical strain of Islam that      them. They returned to Maiduguri in 2003 and began
rejected all forms of Western education, much like        recruiting from Nigeria’s Alamjiri children. The
his spiritual predecessor Maitatsine. He believed that    Alamajiri system is a wholly unique Nigerian concept
science was a form of paganism, that the earth was        whereby poor rural families send their children to
flat, and that Nigeria needed to replace all Western      Islamic boarding schools for their education. Lacking
institutions with Sharia law.                             any money, the children finance their education by
                                                          begging on the streets. Yusuf recruited these children
Boko Haram occasionally carried out attacks               as foot soldiers. Later, as Muhammed Yusuf’s group
in its initial years, but spent most the years            grew, he developed close ties with politicians in the
between 2003 and 2009 developing its                      north. These connections enriched him, coming to own
organizational and institutional structures.              several Mercedes-Benzes, a large home in Maiduguri,

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                                    Radical Islam in Nigeria

      and enough money to send his daughters to private            These two developments paid immediate dividends.
      schools, despite his rejection of Western education.         By December 2010, Boko Haram started attacking
                                                                   targets across Northern Nigeria again, and in June 2011,
     In 2009, Yusuf operationalized his group and initiated a      the group committed its first vehicle-borne suicide
     series of uprisings in July of that year. The response by     attack in Abuja. Then, in August, Boko Haram attacked
     the Nigerian state was brutal. Nearly a thousand Boko         the UN compound in Abuja, internationalizing its fight
                                      Haram members died           and placing it under the broader context of al-Qaeda’s
 Many survivors from the              during the battles, and      global jihadist movement. Defectors later claimed that
 riots fled to the Maghreb the police later captured               Boko Haram attacked the UN to repay AQIM for its help
and trained with al-Qaeda and killed Muhammed                      during its state of disarray following Yusuf’s death.
   in the Islamic Maghreb. Yusuf, leaving the group
                                      in a state of uncertainty.

      Two events reenergized the group. First, many
      survivors from the riots fled to the Maghreb and
      trained with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
      These militants would later return to Nigeria with
      increased knowledge on waging guerrilla warfare and
      with an intimate understanding of the manufacture
      and use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Second,
      Abubakar Shekau, a former Yusuf deputy, assumed
      control of the group in the middle of 2010, giving Boko
      Haram operational direction again.                                Shekau assumes control — Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                          Radical Islam in Nigeria

The burst of violence in 2011 initiated the              divided between supporters of Boko Haram and
deadliest phase of Boko Haram’s insurgency.              supporters of the Nigerian government. People began
Between 2011 and 2013, the group killed                  to claim that Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan,
thousands using suicide attacks against                  refused to intervene in Northern Nigeria because of
civilian and state targets.                              his Christian background, threatening the country with
                                                         sectarianism.
In April 2013, Boko Haram committed the first massacre
at the remote town of Baga. The response by the          Boko Haram’s violence worsened during the following
Nigerian military was disastrous, with survivors         year. The group truly gained international infamy in
claiming that the soldiers themselves set the town       April 2014, however, when it kidnapped 234 girls from
on fire. The first Baga Massacre left Northern Nigeria   a school in Chibok, and likely forced them to convert to

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                              Radical Islam in Nigeria

Islam to marry them off. The news spread across the          to kill as many people as possible. It started its bloody
world, making it public enemy number 1 for a brief few       campaign in Baga killing an estimated 2000 people. The
weeks in April 2014, as people called for the return of      violence over the three day period made it the single
the girls. This attention faded soon after, as events in     worst act of terror since 9/11.
Iraq and Syria made the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) the epicenter of the global jihadist threat. Boko     Boko Haram did not
Haram continued terrorizing Nigeria for the rest of          rest on its laurels,           Boko Haram started
the year, and none of the girls were returned to their       using young girls as           2015 with one bloody
families.                                                    suicide bombers across         objective: create an
                                                             Northern Nigeria               impervious sense of
The summer of 2014 represents a turning point for            in several attacks             insecurity to force
Boko Haram. In June, ISIS advanced through Northern          throughout January. It         Nigeria to postpone
Iraq and declared a caliphate over the territories it        concentrated most of           its elections.
ruled. This move inspired Boko Haram, whom captured          its energies on seizing
the town of Gwoza and declared a caliphate in August.        Maiduguri, attacking the city three times. The Nigerian
This move positioned the group to increase the tempo         military, with help from local militias, successfully
of its activities across Nigeria and to attempt to disrupt   repelled these attacks.
the scheduled elections in Nigeria set for February
2015. It also expanded its activities into nearby            At the time, Boko Haram seemed invincible. It had
countries, specifically Chad and Cameroon.                   committed a major strategic error at the tale-end
                                                             of 2014: it started attacking targets in Chad and
                                                             Cameroon, ramping up its raids in 2015. On the night
                                                             of January 18, it kidnapped 80 people from Cameroon,
The Baga Massacre and                                        barely a week after attacking a Cameroonian military
                                                             outpost near the Nigerian border. On January 31, the
Nigeria’s Election                                           Chadian military killed some 120 Boko Haram militants
                                                             in Cameroon during joint-operations with that country.
Boko Haram started 2015 with one bloody objective:
create an impervious sense of insecurity to force            These attacks inspired all the affected countries to
Nigeria to postpone its elections. To this end, it sought    form a coalition to eradicate Boko Haram. The African

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                           Radical Islam in Nigeria

                                                          of this force initially that were proven wrong over the
                                                          next two months.

                                                          There was a temporal lag in terms of this multinational
                                                          force effecting change in Nigeria’s security
                                                          environment. Boko Haram killed around 70 people in
                                                          the town of Fotokol, and then terrorized the Niger town
                                                          of Diffa. These and other events convinced Nigeria’s
                                                          government to postpone its elections by six weeks. The
                                                          Nigerian military promised that free-and-fair elections
                                                          would be held on March 28.
          Chadian troops in Nigeria — Courtesy of AFP
                                                          In late February and early March, the military started
Union promised to deploy 7500 troops drawn from           delivering on its promises. With the help of Niger, Chad,
Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Benin to fight the    and Cameroon, Nigeria slowly uprooted Boko Haram’s
insurgents. Doubts percolated about the effectiveness     infrastructure in Northeastern Nigeria. By March 5,

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                            Radical Islam in Nigeria

the Chief of the Air Staff noted that the guerrillas had   available indicate that there were at least informal ties
virtually lost their command and control capabilities.     between al-Qaeda and Boko Haram.
This was fortuitous for the country as it geared itself
for elections at the end of the month.                     Osama bin Laden certainly had intentions for
                                                           making Nigeria a major theater for expanding
On March 27, 2015, Nigeria retook Gwoza, the nominal       operations after singling it out in a missive
capital of Boko Haram’s caliphate. This allowed the        released in 2003.
country to hold elections on March 28 — elections that
the UN deemed as free-and-fair.                            That said, no information exists about the direct
                                                           benefits of this relationship for Boko Haram beyond
                                                           the al-Qaeda brand and the initial seed money. Indeed,
                                                           various commentators have noted that among radical
The Internationalization                                   Islamic groups to al-Qaeda, Yusuf’s group is notable for
                                                           its narrow domestic focus until 2011.
of Boko Haram
                                                           After Yusuf’s death in 2009, many Boko Haram
The above narratives captured the origins of Boko          members fled abroad. Reports indicate that some went
Haram and its evolution leading up to the elections of     to Somalia to fight with al-Shabab. Most probably went
2015. What it does not show are its fluid international    to fight with AQIM though. In early 2010, the head of
ties, and their function as a catalyst for change. As      AQIM declared his support for the Nigerian terrorists,
noted before, Boko Haram began with seed money             criticizing the Nigerian Government for the death of
given to it by Osama bin Laden, encrusting it firmly       Muhammed Yusuf. This relationship translated into
within al-Qaeda’s umbrage. In 2002, al-Qaeda was           significant improvements in Boko Haram’s tactical
a centralized organization based in Pakistan, with         approach after mobilizing again in 2010. In 2011, it
affiliates loosely following its direction. Boko Haram     started using vehicle-borne IEDs in combination with
was not in a position to contribute to the broader         shock tactics where explosions were used to draw
global jihadist movement, but it mimicked al-Qaeda’s       out security forces, who were then ambushed with
character extensively.                                     additional IEDs. These types of coordinated assaults
                                                           originated in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is likely
A review of the documents recovered from bin Laden’s       that Boko Haram learned how to successfully carry
hideout in Abbottabad that have been made publicly         them out because of its relationship with AQIM. 2011
                                                           was also the first time that Boko Haram attacked an

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                               Radical Islam in Nigeria

international target, executing a suicide bombing at the      By late summer of 2014, Boko Haram had
UN compound in Abuja as a favor to AQIM.                      virtually conquered Northeastern Nigeria. It
                                                              also learned from the failures of AQIM in Mali
These ties grew deeper in 2012 when the crisis in             and the successes of ISIS in Iraq.
Northern Mali began. As AQIM took over the northern
half of the country, it attracted many Boko Haram             The sense of impunity accompanying its activities
militants. Although the French eventually restored            convinced its leadership that the group was positioned
order to the country in 2013, the conflict proved an          to declare a caliphate in the town of Gwoza. Gwoza
important proving ground for many Nigerian militants.         before Boko Haram captured it was a mostly Christian
Whereas before Boko Haram was a successful terrorist          town along the border with Cameroon. Abubakar
organization, few of its fighters had training in guerrilla   Shekau, in announcing his own proto-state, most likely
warfare. This improvement in capabilities translated          hoped to draw Muslim recruits from Chad, Niger, and
into bloodier raids in Nigeria and various successful         Nigeria, thereby strengthening his organization. Unlike
engagements against the Nigerian military.                    ISIS though, Boko Haram was not innovating or actively

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Boko Haram's History: Radical Islam in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s History:
                                                             Radical Islam in Nigeria

courting many western fighters. Furthermore, it lacked      pioneered by ISIS. Finally in early March, in an act of
a strong social media presence.                             complete desperation, Abubakar Shekau declared his
                                                            group’s allegiance to ISIS. By that point, the Nigerian
From August 2014 until January 2015, Boko Haram had         militants were close to collapse. Two weeks later,
reached its final form in terms of violence. Its violence   the Nigerian security forces successfully recaptured
had worn the Nigerian military thin, and an increasing      Gwoza.
number of reports suggested that soldiers would often
flee than fight the insurgents. For example, in February
2014, militants successfully killed 30 teenagers at the
Federal Government College in Yobe after the military       Conclusion
withdrew its forces in anctipation of a raid by Boko
Haram.                                                      Boko Haram is not defeated. Although Nigeria managed
                                                            to reclaim a territory the size of Belgium in a mere six
Similarly, during the Second Baga Massacre in January       weeks in early 2015, Abubakar Shekau and the rest of
2015, many soldiers fled, leaving the defense of the        its leadership remain at large. Indeed, no major leader
town to poorly armed local militias. The problem for the    of Boko Haram or of any of its affiliates were killed or
group was that it felt it could expand into Cameroon,       captured during the fighting leading up to the elections,
Chad, and Niger despite it lacking the organizational       and a UN analysis noted that by the end of April 2015,
capacity to wage a transnational insurgency in West         Boko Haram’s organizational structure remained
Africa. With a commitment from all affected countries
to cooperate in uprooting Boko Haram’s infrastructure,
the group soon fell apart, requiring it to find another
means of maintaining its image of invincibility.

To this end, the group started copying the strongest
terrorist group at the time: ISIS. Although the Islamic
State had suffered major losses after the United States
began its air campaign against it in September 2014, its
use of social media and slick execution videos made it
appear stronger than it really was. Boko Haram started
using social media and produced its own execution
videos, copying many of the directorial techniques                    Chadian troops in Nigeria — Courtesy of AFP

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Boko Haram’s History:
                                                               Radical Islam in Nigeria

virtually intact. If anything, the report concluded, the      reservoir of tolerance towards these abuses, but this
group had only retreated strategically and that it would      wellspring of support is a finite resource.
continue threatening Nigeria and its neighbors in the
near term unless the Nigerian government did more to          These two facts mean Northeastern Nigeria will remain
secure the peace.                                             contested territory between the Nigerian government
                                                              and Boko Haram in the near future.
These conclusions make more sense when breaking
down the various battles of the Sambisa Forest                Like all insurgencies, Boko Haram derives
campaign, the area liberated in March 2015. Various           its strength from the lack of legitimacy of
aftermath reports suggest that much of the success            the central government stemming from its
against Boko Haram came from South African                    inability to govern and to provide for the basic
mercenaries who gave the Nigerian military a crash            needs of its peoples.
course on unconventional warfare starting in January
                                                              With the endemic poverty, corruption, and the genuine
                                                              distrust towards the central government, Nigeria must
                                                              learn how to govern and protect its people from the
                                                              guerrillas and life’s vicissitudes. Fortunately for it,
                                                              Boko Haram is not its match in that domain. It might be
                                                              violent and might derive inspiration from ISIS, but so
                                                              far, it seems to lack any sophisticated understanding of
                                                              governance or institution building to make it a genuine
                                                              rival for the hearts and minds of Northern Nigerians.

                                                              Muhammadu Buhari assumed the presidency on May
                                                              29. He campaigned on the promise of returning security
         Muhammadu Buhari — Courtesy of Timely News           to the country, much like he did in the 1980s during
                                                              the Maitatsine Uprisings. Violence in Nigeria may have
2015. Many of the victories claimed by the army were          reached a lull, but if Buhari intends on defeating Boko
battles that the mercenaries had fought the night             Haram and other groups like it permanently, he must
before, with Nigerian soldiers only arriving in the           look beyond military fight and address the political
morning to take credit for their activities. In addition,     issues animating the conflict. There are signs of hope in
the campaign benefitted from a 10,000 strong                  this regard. For one, since his days as a dictator he has
multinational coalition force led by Chad and supported       had a reputation for reforming and for cracking down
with intelligence and training by the United States and       on corruption. Two, the fight against Boko Haram is
other western nations. Finally, some reports noted            personal, as he survived an assassination attempt by
that Nigeria’s counterinsurgency strategy launched            the group in 2014. To paraphrase another commentator,
in February was not so much a population-centric              Buhari does not need to be good, just be good enough
model that respects human rights, but rather a dirty          to defeat Boko Haram and secure Nigeria.
war, akin to the French approach to counterinsurgency,
involving heavy civilian casualties and the wanton use        Time will tell if Buhari is capable of defeating Boko
of violence. Given the depravity of Boko Haram in recent      Haram, but if history is any indication, Boko Haram’s
years, the civilians in the north have likely built a large   capabilities and determination are still growing, and its
                                                              lethality still increasing.

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