{"id":13668,"date":"2018-11-24T22:01:19","date_gmt":"2018-11-24T22:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13668"},"modified":"2018-11-24T22:01:19","modified_gmt":"2018-11-24T22:01:19","slug":"boko-haram-is-becoming-even-more-extreme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13668","title":{"rendered":"Boko Haram is becoming even more extreme"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Economist<\/strong>
\nFEW NIGERIANS\u00a0will have mourned the death of Mamman Nur, a senior figure in Boko Haram, one of the world\u2019s most brutal terrorist groups. A capable field commander, Nur is thought to have trained with al-Qaeda cells in the Sahara and with al-Shabab in Somalia. He favoured a pan-African jihad to replace sinful secular regimes with the rule of God.
\nThree months ago he was killed by his own followers. Nigeria\u2019s security chiefs were delighted. However, they should hesitate before celebrating. His death is a hint that the jihadist group\u2014already known for kidnapping schoolgirls and turning children into human bombs\u2014is becoming bloodier still
\nFor all his grand vision, Nur was slightly more moderate than the longtime leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau (pictured above), who rejoices in enslaving girls and \u201ckilling anyone God commands me to kill\u201d. Under Mr Shekau\u2019s command the group has bombed markets and mosques alike.
\nNur, by contrast, suggested that Boko Haram should only attack military targets and that using children as human bombs might not be an act of unblemished piety. His motives may have been tactical. By not engaging in acts of needless cruelty, the jihadists would be more likely to win support, or at least acquiescence, in the remote areas of north-eastern Nigeria where they operate. But Nur also had a theological disagreement with Mr Shekau over who was a Muslim and who could be declared an infidel and therefore killed.
\nMr Shekau thinks that everyone not loyal to him or fighting for his group is an infidel. Nur and Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the son of Boko Haram\u2019s late founder, thought this too broad a definition. In mid-2016 they split away and swore allegiance to the jihadists of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (who also thought Mr Shekau too extreme).
\nThey formed a new group: Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP<\/small>)<\/small>. Since then the two factions of Boko Haram have fought largely separate insurgencies.\u00a0ISWAP<\/small>, which became the dominant faction, has operated largely to the north of Maiduguri, the main city in the region: Boko Haram has kept to the south and east (see map). Now\u00a0ISWAP<\/small>\u2019s policy of sparing civilians has changed.<\/p>\n

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The circumstances of Nur\u2019s death are unclear. Some people say he was killed in a falling-out over ransom payments for the release of 110 schoolgirls kidnapped early this year in Dapchi. A likelier explanation is that he was killed by younger, more extreme members of\u00a0ISWAP<\/small>\u00a0who disagreed with his slightly more moderate stance.
\nThere is certainly evidence of growing brutality. A video released by\u00a0ISWAP<\/small>\u00a0showed the murder of a kidnapped aid worker, Hauwa Mohammed Liman. She was bound, forced to kneel and shot. A colleague, Saifura Hussaini Ahmed Khorsa, was murdered in September, three weeks after Nur\u2019s death.\u00a0ISWAP<\/small>\u00a0said the two Muslim women, a midwife and a nurse, deserved to die because they worked for the Red Cross, which it argued proved that they were apostates.
\nThe growing influence of ultra-extremists, some of whom are thought to be French-speaking foreign fighters, has disrupted\u00a0ISWAP\u2019<\/small>s chain of command. Mr Barnawi himself may also be in danger. Nur\u2019s death has caused \u201cfragmentation\u201d in the ranks, says a negotiator who was involved in trying to secure the release of the two murdered aid workers (and a third captive, from\u00a0UNICEF<\/small>, who may still be alive). \u201cIn the history of Boko Haram there has not been a period where they have killed female hostages in this fashion,\u201d he said. \u201cBut now the fighters are in charge rather than the clerics.\u201d
\nObservers worry that the likelihood of freeing other hostages, including 112 girls still missing after a mass kidnapping from a school in the town of Chibok in 2014, has diminished. \u201cI doubt many more are coming back,\u201d says another hostage negotiator.
\nMeanwhile the government\u2019s struggle against both jihadist factions has suffered serious setbacks. Army outposts and operating bases have been overrun in recent months. Attacks have spread into neighbouring Nigerian states.
\nSome fret that Nigeria\u2019s army may not be able to hold the ground it liberated in 2015, when Boko Haram controlled an area about the size of Belgium before being pushed out of most towns. Casualties among frontline troops have been high and morale is poor. More than 70 soldiers are facing court martial after a mutiny in Maiduguri in August, when they protested against being redeployed to an area that is a Boko Haram stronghold, near the border with Niger.
\nSuch military setbacks cast a shadow over presidential elections scheduled for February. Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria\u2019s president and a former general, won power in 2015 partly by promising to be tougher on Boko Haram than his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, had been. Having claimed last year that the army had crushed Boko Haram in its \u201clast enclave\u201d, he may fail to convince voters that he can do better if given a second term.
\nNext year will see the conflict enter its second decade. More than 20,000 people have been killed; 2.1m have been displaced. If Mr Buhari cannot defeat the jihadists, Nigerians are wondering who can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By The Economist FEW NIGERIANS\u00a0will have mourned the death of Mamman Nur, a senior figure in Boko Haram, one of the world\u2019s most brutal terrorist groups. A capable field commander, Nur is thought to have trained with al-Qaeda cells in the Sahara and with al-Shabab in Somalia. He favoured a pan-African jihad to replace sinful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5777],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}