Boko Haram militants’ evolving strategy in Nigeria opens up new fronts, as risk of suicide bombings rise
IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review
August 3, 2014
People gather at the scene of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack, at the central market, in Maiduguri, Nigeria, on 1 July 2014. Source: PA
Key Points
Renewed links between Boko Haram and its radical jihadist offshoot Ansaru are driving a higher risk of further attacks taking place in Lagos and southern Nigeria.
The use of suicide bombers, particularly female, is behind a rapidly rising rate of mass-casualty attacks and targeted assassination attempts in the Middle Belt and northern cities.
The most threatening development is Boko Haram’s assertion of territorial control in the northeastern Borno State, leaving the group free to train militants for further attacks and hold hostages for ransom.
EVENT
Nigeria’s security services are in danger of being overwhelmed by a highly organised strategy by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram that concentrates on three main areas of operations and uses new tactics including female suicide bombers.
As Nigeria approaches the final six months before a general election in February 2015, there are clear indications that Boko Haram is implementing a multi-faceted strategy aimed at increasing the rate of deadly attacks throughout the country. Since late June there have been multiple attacks in four of Nigeria’s top five cities, including a twin improvised explosive device (IED) attack in Lagos on 25 June; another bombing in the federal capital Abuja on 25 June; two assassination attempts in Kaduna on 23 July; and a series of suicide bombings by women, particularly in the most populous city in the north, Kano.
At the same time, Boko Haram is extending its control of non-urban areas in the three northeastern states subject to a state of emergency, Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, while also staging deadly attacks and kidnappings throughout the area, as well as in neighbouring Cameroon.
Triple focus for operations
Although the Nigerian security services are still struggling to muster an effective response to Boko Haram, the group is showing evidence of a strategy divided into three active zones of operation:
Southern Nigeria, where a network of militants is emerging that is likely to include Hausa-Fulani youths migrating from the north who are frustrated at failing to find work in Nigeria’s growing economy, and more middle-class northern Muslims who are motivated by faith and ideology to align themselves with Boko Haram.
Middle Belt and north central , where Boko Haram is carrying out bombings of churches, shopping malls, and government facilities on a weekly basis.
North East , where the group is focusing increasingly on the border region between Borno State and northern Cameroon, building a safe haven to train militants, holding hostages for ransom and launching attacks virtually daily that target isolated towns and military deployments.
The new threat to southern parts of Nigeria, previously thought to be beyond the range of Boko Haram, was underlined by a twin IED attack in Lagos near the Apapa port area on 25 June. Federal authorities initially attributed this to a cooking gas explosion, but several senior security sources later confirmed to news agencies that it was an intentional twin explosion, one of which was likely to have been a suicide vehicle-borne IED driven at a fuel tanker by a woman, that was likely to be intended to set off a chain reaction in a nearby fuel depot.
The incident was subsequently claimed in a video message by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. Although this may be an opportunistic assertion of responsibility for an act perpetrated by a group only loosely allied with Boko Haram, Shekau has repeatedly threatened to attack Western interests in southern Nigeria, including oil facilities in the Niger Delta. It is more likely that the Lagos attack was planned by Boko Haram off-shoot Ansaru, many of whose militants trained in northern Mali with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2012, and whose focus is more explicitly on attacking Western interests.
The Nigerian authorities had been taking the threat of an attack in Lagos and the south seriously for some time, and in the first half of 2014, more than 1,000 suspected Boko Haram militants were arrested in the southern states of Rivers, Imo, Bayelsa, and Abia.
Suicide bombing tactic stepped up
The activities of Ansaru had been curtailed by French intervention in northern Mali since January 2013, but signs of their higher profile and renewed links with Boko Haram are suggested by the wave of bombings in the Middle Belt since the first explosion at the Nyanya bus park in the Abuja suburbs in April 2014. The scale of attacks is escalating rapidly, and increasingly featuring the use of suicide bombings, using both vehicles and also explosive belts strapped to individuals, a tactic repeatedly used by Ansaru and its AQIM-trained militants in its main area of operations in the Middle Belt and Kano when it was formerly most active in 2011 and 2012.
In the city of Kaduna on 23 July, at least 82 people died when militants tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Muslim cleric Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi and former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari in two suicide bombings just two hours apart. Suicide bomb attacks by women occurred on four separate occasions in Kano between 27-30 July, with a campus, petrol station, and shopping centre targeted. The tactic appears to take advantage of the lower levels of suspicion attached to women but is also intended to create panic in northern cities. It is less than two months since the first female suicide bomber in Nigeria’s history blew herself up at a military barracks in Gombe.
Boko Haram seeks to carve out Islamic state in the northeast
The biggest immediate concern to Nigeria, however, is arguably the military’s loss of any control over non-urban areas in the northeast. The clearest symbol of this came with the takeover of Damboa on 17-18 July as Boko Haram fighters killed more than 100 inhabitants from a town left undefended for over two weeks when militants forced soldiers from a new tank battalion camp to flee. Militants twice ambushed convoys trying to re-establish the base in a town just 85 kilometres from Borno state capital Maiduguri, and then blew up a bridge to cut off access to the town from the south. At least five bridges have now been destroyed in the last few weeks, including those leading from Borno into Cameroon.
In aiming to prevent Nigeria’s military accessing the rural northeast in any force, Boko Haram seems to be taking the first steps in establishing a limited Islamic state that it wants to see instituted across the Muslim-majority north. It is less interested in establishing control over the population, which has largely fled to neighbouring countries or to Maiduguri and other major towns. The main purpose is likely to be to establish a fairly secure zone where militants can receive further training and hold hostages for ransom or exchange. This includes more than 200 schoolgirls still missing after being kidnapped from Chibok on 14 April, as well as an estimated 20 hostages taken from the Cameroonian town of Kolofata on 27 July, including the wife of Cameroon’s influential deputy prime minister, Amadou Ali.
FORECAST
The security situation facing the Nigerian government is deteriorating at an accelerating pace, and there is little sign that authorities are capable of responding to the challenge posed by Boko Haram in any of its three zones of operation. The wave of suicide bombings, particularly by individuals, poses an immense challenge for the security services to provide adequate protection for targets in Lagos, including Western businesses, headquarters of international organisations, hotels, government offices, and security installations. The more limited support networks in Lagos and the south mean attacks will be fairly sporadic, but they will continue to occur on a frequent basis in the Middle Belt and north central cities. Moreover, while there is no challenge to Boko Haram’s control of the northeast, it is free to accelerate the training and despatch of militants to keep up the tempo of these attacks.
IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review
August 3, 2014
People gather at the scene of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack, at the central market, in Maiduguri, Nigeria, on 1 July 2014. Source: PA
Key Points
Renewed links between Boko Haram and its radical jihadist offshoot Ansaru are driving a higher risk of further attacks taking place in Lagos and southern Nigeria.
The use of suicide bombers, particularly female, is behind a rapidly rising rate of mass-casualty attacks and targeted assassination attempts in the Middle Belt and northern cities.
The most threatening development is Boko Haram’s assertion of territorial control in the northeastern Borno State, leaving the group free to train militants for further attacks and hold hostages for ransom.
EVENT
Nigeria’s security services are in danger of being overwhelmed by a highly organised strategy by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram that concentrates on three main areas of operations and uses new tactics including female suicide bombers.
As Nigeria approaches the final six months before a general election in February 2015, there are clear indications that Boko Haram is implementing a multi-faceted strategy aimed at increasing the rate of deadly attacks throughout the country. Since late June there have been multiple attacks in four of Nigeria’s top five cities, including a twin improvised explosive device (IED) attack in Lagos on 25 June; another bombing in the federal capital Abuja on 25 June; two assassination attempts in Kaduna on 23 July; and a series of suicide bombings by women, particularly in the most populous city in the north, Kano.
At the same time, Boko Haram is extending its control of non-urban areas in the three northeastern states subject to a state of emergency, Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, while also staging deadly attacks and kidnappings throughout the area, as well as in neighbouring Cameroon.
Triple focus for operations
Although the Nigerian security services are still struggling to muster an effective response to Boko Haram, the group is showing evidence of a strategy divided into three active zones of operation:
Southern Nigeria, where a network of militants is emerging that is likely to include Hausa-Fulani youths migrating from the north who are frustrated at failing to find work in Nigeria’s growing economy, and more middle-class northern Muslims who are motivated by faith and ideology to align themselves with Boko Haram.
Middle Belt and north central , where Boko Haram is carrying out bombings of churches, shopping malls, and government facilities on a weekly basis.
North East , where the group is focusing increasingly on the border region between Borno State and northern Cameroon, building a safe haven to train militants, holding hostages for ransom and launching attacks virtually daily that target isolated towns and military deployments.
The new threat to southern parts of Nigeria, previously thought to be beyond the range of Boko Haram, was underlined by a twin IED attack in Lagos near the Apapa port area on 25 June. Federal authorities initially attributed this to a cooking gas explosion, but several senior security sources later confirmed to news agencies that it was an intentional twin explosion, one of which was likely to have been a suicide vehicle-borne IED driven at a fuel tanker by a woman, that was likely to be intended to set off a chain reaction in a nearby fuel depot.
The incident was subsequently claimed in a video message by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. Although this may be an opportunistic assertion of responsibility for an act perpetrated by a group only loosely allied with Boko Haram, Shekau has repeatedly threatened to attack Western interests in southern Nigeria, including oil facilities in the Niger Delta. It is more likely that the Lagos attack was planned by Boko Haram off-shoot Ansaru, many of whose militants trained in northern Mali with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2012, and whose focus is more explicitly on attacking Western interests.
The Nigerian authorities had been taking the threat of an attack in Lagos and the south seriously for some time, and in the first half of 2014, more than 1,000 suspected Boko Haram militants were arrested in the southern states of Rivers, Imo, Bayelsa, and Abia.
Suicide bombing tactic stepped up
The activities of Ansaru had been curtailed by French intervention in northern Mali since January 2013, but signs of their higher profile and renewed links with Boko Haram are suggested by the wave of bombings in the Middle Belt since the first explosion at the Nyanya bus park in the Abuja suburbs in April 2014. The scale of attacks is escalating rapidly, and increasingly featuring the use of suicide bombings, using both vehicles and also explosive belts strapped to individuals, a tactic repeatedly used by Ansaru and its AQIM-trained militants in its main area of operations in the Middle Belt and Kano when it was formerly most active in 2011 and 2012.
In the city of Kaduna on 23 July, at least 82 people died when militants tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Muslim cleric Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi and former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari in two suicide bombings just two hours apart. Suicide bomb attacks by women occurred on four separate occasions in Kano between 27-30 July, with a campus, petrol station, and shopping centre targeted. The tactic appears to take advantage of the lower levels of suspicion attached to women but is also intended to create panic in northern cities. It is less than two months since the first female suicide bomber in Nigeria’s history blew herself up at a military barracks in Gombe.
Boko Haram seeks to carve out Islamic state in the northeast
The biggest immediate concern to Nigeria, however, is arguably the military’s loss of any control over non-urban areas in the northeast. The clearest symbol of this came with the takeover of Damboa on 17-18 July as Boko Haram fighters killed more than 100 inhabitants from a town left undefended for over two weeks when militants forced soldiers from a new tank battalion camp to flee. Militants twice ambushed convoys trying to re-establish the base in a town just 85 kilometres from Borno state capital Maiduguri, and then blew up a bridge to cut off access to the town from the south. At least five bridges have now been destroyed in the last few weeks, including those leading from Borno into Cameroon.
In aiming to prevent Nigeria’s military accessing the rural northeast in any force, Boko Haram seems to be taking the first steps in establishing a limited Islamic state that it wants to see instituted across the Muslim-majority north. It is less interested in establishing control over the population, which has largely fled to neighbouring countries or to Maiduguri and other major towns. The main purpose is likely to be to establish a fairly secure zone where militants can receive further training and hold hostages for ransom or exchange. This includes more than 200 schoolgirls still missing after being kidnapped from Chibok on 14 April, as well as an estimated 20 hostages taken from the Cameroonian town of Kolofata on 27 July, including the wife of Cameroon’s influential deputy prime minister, Amadou Ali.
FORECAST
The security situation facing the Nigerian government is deteriorating at an accelerating pace, and there is little sign that authorities are capable of responding to the challenge posed by Boko Haram in any of its three zones of operation. The wave of suicide bombings, particularly by individuals, poses an immense challenge for the security services to provide adequate protection for targets in Lagos, including Western businesses, headquarters of international organisations, hotels, government offices, and security installations. The more limited support networks in Lagos and the south mean attacks will be fairly sporadic, but they will continue to occur on a frequent basis in the Middle Belt and north central cities. Moreover, while there is no challenge to Boko Haram’s control of the northeast, it is free to accelerate the training and despatch of militants to keep up the tempo of these attacks.
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