Boko Haram: Havoc in Nigeria

Almost on a daily basis there are new reports of attacks in northern Nigeria, usually claimed by or attributed to Boko Haram, a shadowy jihadi organisation which launched an uprising in 2009, only to be crushed and then to re-emerge anew as smaller autonomous cells. Last year, Boko Haram killed over 450 people in multiple attacks across the country. Over 300 people have been killed so far this year already. Who are Boko Haram and what do they want?


The organisation goes by two names: in Arabic it has referred to itself as "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad" (جماعة اهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد), but it usually goes by its Hausa name "Boko Haram", meaning "western education is sinful". A jihadi organisation named for its grievances on schooling? It's unusual but makes more sense when two contexts are added: firstly, the word "boko" can be translated not just as "western education", but may also refer to Hausa written in the Latin script, or may mean an adulteration, fraud or trick. The name refers not just to education but to the secular or non-Islamic policies and structures of the Nigerian government in general, and this is where the second context comes in: for just over a decade there has been a simmering conflict in Nigeria regarding the introduction of sharia law into some (northern, mostly Muslim) Nigerian states, and attempts to spread it to the country as a whole. Sectarian clashed and atrocities have occurred with a sad regularity, and Boko Haram's rejection of non-Islamic forms of education and government fits into this wider prism.


As a Salafi organisation, Boko Haram is inherently separatist (being based in closed-off Salafi communities which don't interact with local non-Salafi Muslims) and focused on regulating every aspect of life in light of their interpretation of the Koran. Their version of Salafi Islam which makes it "haram" ("sinful" or "forbidden") for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society. This includes voting in elections, wearing shirts and trousers or receiving a secular education. This is on the grounds that the government of Nigeria (even when it has a Muslim President) and the Islamic establishment of Nigeria to both (supposedly) inherently be in the thrall of non-believers. Boko Haram's declared goal is the abolition of all non-Islamic forms of government and the application of sharia law across all of Nigeria (on the Christian half of the country as well as the Muslim northern half). There is also the usual speculation that heavy-handed security forces responding to Boko Haram (including with random arrests alleged and disappearances) have driven recruits into the organisation, probably with some truth behind it.
In pursuit of its cause, Boko Haram has embraced violence against almost every possible target. There have been multiple recent attacks on police stations and jail breaks across northern Nigeria.In claiming responsibility for an attack on a church and its congregation in the central city of Jos this week, a Boko Haram spokesman stated: "We attacked simply because it's a church and we can decide to attack any other church. We have just started." A few days before Boko Haram gunmen killed Muslim worshippers at a (non-Salafi) mosque in the northern city of Kano. A few days before that a bomb in the market of Maiduguri, the mostly Muslim north-eastern city where the organisation was originally founded.

Oddly enough, Boko Haram was founded and led (until his death in 2009) by one Mohammed Yusuf, a man  fluent in English and with a graduate-level education, who drove a Mercedes-Benz. This same man was keen on giving interviews in which he insisted rain was a "creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain", and saying that his group would reject the theory that the world was a sphere if it was found to run contrary to the teachings of Allah. Irony was clearly not his strong point.

Since Yusuf's death, it seems Boko Haram may have splintered into three different factions, but in many areas it may lack any strong chain of command. Increasingly Boko Haram may be taking the form of semi-autonomous militias and cells, with their level of violence and links to external terrorist organisations varying from group to group.

Speaking of external connections, last week for the first time ever a top Nigerian secutiy official claimed there are definite links between Boko Haram and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), elaborating only that these links consisted of "support and training" Boko Haram is said to have received from AQIM.

How strong are these connections? Do they even exist? What is clear is that any links between AQIM and Boko Haram are not very strong ones: Boko Haram still seems to be focused on a largely domestic agenda in terms of its outlook, and so far North African Arab fighters haven't appeared among Boko Haram's ranks. Two areas in which links may exist or may be growing however: since 2011, Boko Haram has increasingly been making engaging in bomb attacks, with several instances of suicide bombings. Its June 2011 attack against a police station included Nigeria's first ever suicide bombing, so if nothing else different styles of jihadism reminiscent of al Qaeda are being imported. The frequency and and audacity of the bombings have also been escalating, as well as the casualties from them. Boko Haram's 2010 and early 2011 bombings tended to kill only a few people, in contrast with its Christmas 2011 bombings (directed against Nigerian Christians) which killed 41, its January 20 bombing which killed dozens and a bombing in a market last week which killed 30. Clearly the organisation is escalating its bombing campaign, and if it hasn't already forged links with the regions premier jihadi bomb-makers (AQIM), it seems only a matter of time before Boko Haram links up with them in order to commit the kind of mass coordinated bombings al Qaeda has perpetrated in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt over the years.

Boko Haram's second preferred attack method, however, is gunmen on motorbikes, which it has made use ofnot only in in multiple recent attacks on police stations and prison breaks, but also against civilian targets (such as its attack on a mosque last week). In this area a connection with AQIM or other violent jihadis across West Africa may emerge also: if Boko Haram wants to escalate its conventional attacks against government and civilian targets, it will need access to more and more small arms and possibly even heavier weaponry, both of which are currently flooding into the Sahara and Sahel from Libya by way of Niger, Algeria and Mali (see "The Dark of the Sahara" post). North African violent jihadis are almost certainly making use of this arms smorgasbord, and so the emergence of connections through these arms networks seems only a matter of time.
Finally, the Nigerian government itself may be pushing Boko Haram and violent jihadis across North Africa closer together. Boko Haram is believed to currently draw a small number of its fighters from neighbouring countries. However in response to Boko Haram's attacks the Nigerian government has stepped up its repatriation of illegal foreigners from northern Nigeria to Niger and Chad, deporting over 11,000 over the past six months. Far from stemming Boko Haram's insurgency, however, this policy may add to it. It is almost certain that most of those deported were not Boko Haram members, however they now have a grievance against the Nigerian government and form a part of a growing refugee crisis (see "The Dark of the Sahara" post) a cross the Sahel, a fertile breeding ground for Boko Haram recruitment, away from the watchful eye of the Nigerian government and in countries with growing food scarcity and weapons abundance. This could drive up the recruitment of violent jihadis across the region, including Boko Haram.

One final note on Boko Haram's connections: there is at least a perception in Nigeria that the insurgency in the Niger Delta (in southern Nigeria, among predominantly Christian ethnic groups in this oil-rich area) and the unrest surrounding it was instrumental in Goodluck Jonathan (a southern Christian from the area of the insurgency) rising to the Presidency and in gaining greater national focus on the grievances of southern Nigerians. In some ways Boko Haram may be playing a similar role for the poorer, mostly Muslim north of Nigeria, which lacks the south's oil resources. There is speculation that some in the north may actually be abetting Boko Haram in order to ensure that northern (and Muslim) issues and grievances are at the fore during the 2015 elections, and that a northern Muslim becomes the next President. No proof of any connections between Boko Haram and anyone with official power has yet been found, and such links may not exist, but they may well emerge, considering the political power and oil money at stake in this divided country.

The Dark of the Sahara

What's happening in the Sahara?

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (Mouvement National pour la Libération de l'Azawad) (MNLA) says that in January they launched an armed campaign to liberate of all the peoples of the Azawad (north-east Mali), not just the Tuareg people, from the rule of the Government of Mali.

The Malian Government says the MNLA are Tuareg 'bandits' with links to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a charge the MNLA vehemently denies.

The French Government originally downplayed the AQIM connection, but has since then accused the MNLA of adopting tactics which “resembled that used by al Qaeda.”

British anthropologist and authority on the Tuareg Jeremy Keenan says this is yet another part of a long saga of the US and Algerian Governments fabricating false claims of al Qaeda links (and even directing kidnappings and false-flag attacks by 'Islamists') in order to boost their military influence over the region. In January, Algerian troops crossed in to Mali.

And the Nigerian Government says the arms flowing into the region could aid the al Qaeda-linked Boko Haram terrorist organisation in Nigeria.

So what's really going on?

The MNLA and Libya

There is definitely an armed insurrection by the MNLA going on in north-eastern Mali, with its fighters being primarily drawn from the traditionally-nomadic Tuareg people of the region. This should be seen in the context of the multiple Tuareg rebellions that have occurred since Mali gained independence (and the similar past rebellions in neighbouring Niger), the most of which (prior to the current rebellion) ended in 2009. Largely they stem from a resentment of the Government of Mali (based in Bamako, in the far south-west) which many Tuaregs feel has long marginalized them, and consequently many desire independence or self-determination for their region, the Azawad.

The MNLA has captured and lost various towns in its struggle against the Malian armed forces. It was during the MNLA's assault on the town of Aguelhoc in late January that the Malian government accused them of of perpetrating a joint attack with AQIM. The "al Qaeda-style" tactics the MNLA are accused of using are the alleged execution of 60-100 captured Malian soldiers and civilians, many ostensibly with their hands bound.

The problem lately in North Africa is that everyone seems to be accused of working with al Qaeda, but (unlike al Shabaab in Somalia) no-one seems happy to admit to actually having any ties.

Why is the al Qaeda link accusation against the MNLA problematic? Because it is contradicted by what we do know about why this most recent Tuareg rebellion is doing so well; Malian officials (including members of the military) have described the MNLA as being surprisingly well armed (with heavy weaponry, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft rockets) and as sometimes having better logistics and equipment than the Malian military (including satellite phones). Where did this all come from? From Tuareg soldiers returning after the end of the recent Libyan civil war.

Several of the past Tuareg rebellions in Mali were at least in part sponsored by Moammar Gadhafi's regime, with Gadhafi himself claiming to have blood ties to the Tuaregs. He felt such affinity with the Tuareg that he entrusted a part of his security to them, and it was Tuareg guides who evacuated his son to Niger across the desert after the fall of Tripoli. Most importantly, Gadhafi recruited hundreds of Tuareg into his armed forces over the years, and many of these are now returning to Mali, armed with everything they could loot from Gadhafi's arsenals. The MNLA was actually born just last October, when career veterans of past Tuareg rebellions, Malian deserters from Gadhafi's army and a few young activists met up in the oasis settlement of Zahak, by the Algerian border. The MNLA's top military commander is one Colonel Mahamed Ag Najim, recently of the Libyan armed forces.

The obvious problem with claiming a rebellion closely associated with the former Libyan regime is backed by al Qaeda is that that same former Libyan regime claimed its own opponents were working with al Qaeda! Not surprising, as the "al Qaeda card" is played frequently by regimes against rebels in the region, but it does not seem particularly convincing that Gadhafi's Tuareg former soldiers have suddenly developed close ties with al Qaeda that simply did not exist a few months ago. It has not been so long that these Tuareg soldiers were being told by their beloved leader that AQIM was fighting alongside their enemies.

Al Qaeda, the US and Algeria

The only detailed version of the al Qaeda link accusation surrounds Iyad Ag Ghali, a former Tuareg rebel who served briefly as Mali's Consul General in Saudi Arabia before returning home to found an Islamic movement, some of whose men have allegedly been seen fighting with the MNLA recently. Ag Ghali has a cousin who is confirmed as a local al Qaeda commander. A reputed AQIM leader was also killed during a MNLA attack on a Malian town last week, but it's not clear how he died or why he was there. When that is as "concrete" as the MNLA-al Qaeda link theory gets, the whole story begins to look dubious.

So is Jeremy Keenan right? Is this another example of a fake allegation of an al Qaeda link, pushed from behind the scenes by the US and Algerian Governments?

Also unlikely: the current insurrection in Mali has actually disrupted the planned Operation Flintlock, a major military exercise in Mali between US, European and African troops later this month, because the Malian army is busy responding to attacks from Tuareg rebels. Flintlock was intended to help boost the counterterrorism capacity in African countries. The small unit of Algerian trainers dispatched to Mali's north to train and equip local units (the forces Keenan cited as an indication of Algerian expansionism) has been forced to leave due to the fighting. Moreover, former Gadhafi fighters (whom even Keenan admits are resentful of the West for toppling his regime) are hardly the sort of people the US wants gaining in power in the Sahara. If the US and Algeria really are trying to secretly use "al Qaeda" false-flag attacks to boost their military influence in the region, it is severely backfiring.

Jihadis and Guns

But none of this is to say that the situation in Mali has no relevance for violent jihadism in the region. The fallout from the Libyan civil war and this new conflict in Mali is driving arms proliferation, and leaving the region awash in small arms and light weapons. Nigeria's president warned of this at a West African regional summit last week. There have been multiple allegations that former Libyan weapons are on sale to the highest bidder throughout north-east Mali. As for recruits, the Malian conflict has already driven 15,000 refugees into neighbouring countries, and a regional food crisis is causing desperation (especially as the conflict interferes with food distribution). This situation greatly increases the ability of violent jihadi organisations like AQIM to obtain weaponry and fighters for use in local conflicts.

And there definitely are active, violent jihadi groups in the region who desire such weapons. Last week, three armed Islamists (allegedly linked to AQIM) and one Algerian gendarme were killed when al Algerian patrol intercepted two all-terrain vehicles attempting to enter Algeria from Mali. The Algerian government has been engaged in a long-simmering conflict with AQIM in its country. In 2009, AQIM launched assassinations and attacks against Malian security officials. The other main jihadi beneficiary of the situation may be Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist group, which is engaged in conflict against the Nigerian Government, Western influence and non-Muslims in their country, and has killed 200 people already this year. Last week, Boko Haram gunmen freed 119 inmates from a Nigerian prison in order to liberate a few of their members being held their, having launched a similar prison break operation in 2010. The kind of arms now flooding into Mali and the wider region are exactly the kind which Boko Haram could use to launch more such attacks.

Alongside the aforementioned disruption to training and joint operations between US and West African nations' armed forces against jihadi groups, this flood of arms-for-sale and refugees has the real potential to be a boon to the violent Islamic organisations in the region. In that sense, indirectly the MNLA's struggle may aid the jihadis' cause.

The Boys from Kismayo

It makes sense to refer to al Shabaab (الشباب‎) as "boys", as that's exactly what the word means in Arabic. The organisation's full name is the "Mujahadeen Youth Movement" (حركة الشباب المجاهدين‎), possibly to differentiate themselves from the many Gulf Arab football clubs also called "al Shabaab". Its built around a core of veterans who fought for the now-defunct Islamic Courts Union (ICU) when it took Mogadishu in 2006, back when al Shabaab was just a hardline youth faction under the ICU. Since the ICU's fall, al Shabaab seems to have become its successor organisation, albeit in the form of an alliance of jihadi militias rather than an actual government in the ICU mould.


But the boys have just moved into the big leagues: today, on the outskirts of Mogadishu, where the embattled Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is under siege, hundreds of Somalis rallied in support of the merger announced a few days ago -the merger of al Shabaab and al Qaeda. Yes, that al Qaeda, not another poorly-named football club. Al Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the merger first, in an online clip which included an audio recording by Al-Shabaab’s leader Ahmed Abdi Godane in which he pledged allegiance to Zawahiri. Today, the (appropriately named) al Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage told the gathered crowds of armed men and veiled women outside Mogadishu that al Shabaab is "happy" with the merger. Al Shabaab is no longer just an affiliate of al Qaeda, it is a full-blown part of it. In essence, it has become al Qaeda's Somalian youth wing, its regional feeder club.


Why would al Shabaab choose to fully merge into an organisation which has lost much of its leadership over the past year and whose ability to both inspire and terrify seems to have sharply declined? Mostly because al Shabaab's own fortunes have fared none-too-well recently, and this has brought pressure on Godane, easily the most pro-al Qaeda amongst al Shabaab's leading figures (barring the actual al Qaeda members already on loan to them in Somalia). Godane has already seen a split emerge amongst the leadership last year as the southern al Shabaab commanders favored lifting Godane's ban on Western emergency aid (due to the ongoing East African famine), and in July he was (briefly) forced to back down and lift some restrictions, although they have largely been restored. Al Shabaab has also suffered multiple military setbacks recently, losing the strategic border towns of Bulo Hawo and Dhobley in spring 2011, and their "tactical retreat" in which they surrendered all of Mogadishu to the TFG in August (followed by the loss of the town of Beledweyne in December). This pullout from Mogadishu may well have been linked to the aforementioned leadership split, and it has had serious ramifications for al Shabaab's finances: it lost the taxes it collected from about 4,000 shops in Mogadishu (ranging from $50 a month each from small traders to thousands from telecom companies). This isn't to say al Shabaab is broke (it still enjoys a lucrative charcoal export business out of the port of Kismayo, Somalia's second city, and may also be receiving money from the Eritrean government according to the UN), but the financial blow was significant. Some of the southern commanders who wanted the aid ban lifted now support abandoning any attempt to retake Mogadishu altogether. In this environment, Godane badly needs a win.


Godane has (not surprisingly) also grown increasingly paranoid about enemies within al Shabaab acting against him. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a top Godane ally and native of Comoros who was al-Qaeda's military operations chief in East Africa, was killed at a government roadblock in Mogadishu, leading Godane to suspect that his enemies within al Shabaab had tricked Fazul into an ambush. This paranoia can only have been re-enforced by the killing of Bilal el-Berjawi, a British national and al Qaeda member who acted as trainer for al Shabaab, by a US drone attack just three weeks ago. Facing significant internal opposition, Godane may now see foreign fighters from al Qaeda as his most valuable and most loyal allies, and thus an outright merger with al Qaeda (presumably to be accompanied by greater support from al Qaeda abroad, especially in terms of personnel) may seem like the best move to re-enforce his leadership and control of al Shabaab. The merger re-affirms the organisation's commitment to the global jihad movement (the basis on which it receives the aid from al Qaeda Godane seems increasingly reliant on) and is likely to help al Shabaab in terms of recruitment (both amongst Somalis and non-Somalis abroad, likely to Godane's pleasure) and finances.


Finally, it is notable that al Shabaab is moving more and more in the direction of a global jihadi organisation rather than a strictly Somalia-centric one. In November 2010 al Shabaab established an "Al Quds Brigade" specifically tasked with attacking Israel and Jewish targets throughout Africa. Since at least January 2010 al Shabaab has been exchanging fighters with rebels in Yemen, and in the same month a man linked with al Shabaab attempted to kill one of the Danish authors of the "Mohammed cartoons". Al Shabaab declared jihad against Kenya last February for its support of the TFG, and may well be linked to recent kidnappings in north-east Kenya. Most significantly, al Shabaab has attracted dozens of American Somalis (mostly from the Minneapolis area) to travel to Somalia to join their cause. Last October, one of these American recruits called for terrorist attacks against the US in his martyrdom video (before blowing himself up in Mogadishu, the fourth American to do so). The US is a noted backer of the TFG and, of course, enemy of al Qaeda. It is this connection which makes the merger with Al Qaeda so worrying. As General Carter Ham, head of AFRICOM, said in late 2010:


"If you ask me what keeps me awake at night, it is the thought of an American passport-holding person who transits through a training camp in Somalia and gets some skill and then finds their way back into the United States to attack Americans here in our homeland".


Having secured his position (now as manager for a feeder club to a much larger franchise), and hoping to increase revenue and draw in foreign players, Godane seems to be looking to make his boys bigger players on the world stage -and that may well mean sending some of the team out "on tour".

The Sharaabtoon

There aren't enough bars in downtown Kandahar, or around the Kismayo docks, or anywhere in Gaza. At least not bars that jihadis would go to. Nowhere you could go, sit with a drink, and eavesdrop on the messy, convoluted and contradictory mess that is violent jihadism around the world.

So instead we have the imaginary sharaaabtoon (literally "alcohol place" in Pashto), a place where various self-proclaimed mujahadeens will be brought forth to be seen and overheard, just as if they were the clientele of a bar. We'll try to follow both the big current events which would get everyone talking, but also the smaller organisations who would slip in and out of the bar quietly and unnoticed, if you weren't listening carefully.

Remember: no shahada, no service.