An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir April 2015 www.dfmagazine.ie 22 | SPREADInG TERRoR In nIGERIA by PAUL O'BRIEN O n the night of 14/15 April 2014 armed insurgents entered the town of Chibok in borno State, nigeria, and ab- ducted 276 schoolgirls from the state-run secondary school. The group then managed to evade government forces and disappear into the Sambisa Forest, an area covering 30,000sq miles that includes dense jungle and open savannah. A statement issued by the group revealed that the children would be treated as slaves and married off; a reference to an ancient Islamic belief that women captured in conflict are considered war booty. Responsibility for the kidnappings was claimed by a group of insurgents known as Boko Haram (loosely translated as 'West- ern education is forbidden'), an Islamic jihadist and terrorist organisation based in northern Nigeria. Founded in 2002, the organisation grew rapidly under the leadership of Mohammed Yusuf. The group's ideology advocates strict Sharia law and the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria. It objects to the westernisation of Nigerian society and is against what it sees as the concentrated wealth of the country being distributed among a small political living mainly in the Christian south of the country. During the first seven years of the organisation's existence, it managed to grow in strength and evade government notice by withdrawing from society and setting up bases in the remote north-eastern areas of the country. The Nigerian government repeatedly ignored warnings of the group's growing radicalisation and their increased militancy. In 2009, after a spate of attacks against police stations and other government buildings in Maiduguri, a violent uprising by Boko Haram was quashed by the authorities, resulting in the death of Mohammed Yusuf and the imprisonment of many of his followers. However, following a mass prison breakout a year later, the group reorganised and commenced a campaign of attacks against soft targets, steadily escalating their actions to include attacks against police and military installations as well as a suicide attack against the UN headquarters at Abuja. The group has been conducting its campaign of terror on the cheap, making mayhem with a makeshift collection of automatic weapons, rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. They acquire these armaments from stolen Nigerian military stocks or purchase them on the thriving Central African arms black market. Neighbouring countries such as Chad and Libya also provide an abundance of arms that are easily transported across under-policed and sometimes non-existent borders. Since giving their allegiances to al Qaeda, military training has increased and has become more sophisticated with international insurgents conducting training camps in the Maghreb and the Arabian Peninsula. This training has enabled them to launch more audacious operations. Funding for the group is traced to its involvement in bank robberies and kidnapping ransoms. Nigerian businessmen held for ransom may fetch an estimated $1,000,000, while foreign nationals, many of them aid workers, bring in even more. The group is also involved in extorting money from local governments, with councillors willing to pay subsidies in order to protect their villages. While Nigeria is now a democracy under its president, Goodluck Jonathan, the country was once governed by a series of ruthless military dictatorships from 1966 until 1999. It was during this time, and the rise of ethnic militancy, that Boko Haram grew in popularity and estab- lished a base in Maiduguri, the capital of the north-eastern state of Borno. A religious complex, consisting of a school and living quarters, attracted many Muslim families from across Nigeria and neighbouring countries. Yusuf Mohammed's goal of creating an Islamic state while also de- nouncing police and political corruption enabled the organisation to become a fertile recruiting ground for disenchanted Muslim youths. After the prison break in 2010, Boko Haram reorganised and launched IED at-

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