IT is high time we re-strategised on how to win the war on terror that has raged for seven blood-soaked years. This is because the Islamist terror group has stepped up its deadly campaign through suicide bombings and gun attacks since January. The recent attacks in Dikwa, Chibok and Dalori (Borno State), and some parts of Adamawa State represent a brutal reminder that the terror group still poses a lethal threat to our security. These attacks have also left a deep impression in our psyche and it is expedient to retool the intelligence-gathering arm of the security agencies to buck this trend.
In Dalori village, located four kilometres outside of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, the Islamic insurrectionists carried out a night attack that left 86 people dead. Apart from women, many children were reportedly burnt to death deliberately. “I’m still in mourning as I lost 11 persons in the siege. At present, I’m still looking for five of my children, who went missing during the attack,” a victim lamented. In Chibok, where the community has been in mourning since April 2014 when Boko Haram abducted 276 secondary schoolgirls, three suicide bombers detonated bombs that killed 13 people at a local market. Boko Haram girl-suicide bombers attacked an Internally-Displaced Persons camp in Dikwa last week, killing 51 people. A similar incident occurred at the Gombi market in Adamawa.
In spite of the killings and destruction, the government believes Boko Haram has lost the war. This is turning out to be a ghastly mistake. We are not as optimistic as the government because Islamic extremism has taken a deep root in the North-East region and having been festering for over seven years, it is not easy to uproot. True, the military have seized back the initiative from Boko Haram since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in May 2015. The military have driven out the Islamists from the 18 local government areas that they had occupied across three states. Even the Sambisa forest in Borno, which served as the fortress of the insurgents, has been breached. However, the authorities need a wider appreciation of extremist Islamism.
For one, Boko Haram’s sources of finance, weapons and recruitment network have not been sufficiently degraded. Even in retreat, the group has continued to inflict colossal injury on the Nigerian state. Its recruitment is alive and well because its twisted creed of hate and bigotry is still spreading. Coincidentally, the State Security Service said last week that it had arrested an alleged recruiter for the Islamic State in Iran and Syria in Kano State. Abdusalam Yunusa is alleged to be a 400-level undergraduate at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, who was working to create ISIS cells in Nigeria.
As long as Boko Haram is still present in Chad, Niger Republic and Cameroon, and ISIS is still thriving in rudderless Libya, Nigeria cannot underestimate the threat that terrorists pose to its corporate existence. Hassan Mohamud, President of Somalia, which is battling al-Shabab terrorists, gives an insight. He said, “Without a stable Somalia, the whole region of the Horn of Africa will remain unstable and, by and large, the African continent. There are proofs and evidence that (for) some time, Boko Haram has been trained in Somalia and they went back to Nigeria. The terrorists are so linked together, they are associated and so organised…”
As a result, most of the nations contending with jihadist terrorism and its eccentric ideology recognise the potent threat that terror groups pose. Europol, the Netherlands-based body that coordinates European Union efforts on terrorism, says ISIS has “developed a new combat-style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global stage…”
The response of EU governments to this threat is to develop intelligence activities against terror groups. Europol said, “International crime and terrorist groups operate worldwide and make use of the latest technology. To ensure an effective and coordinated response, Europol needs to be equally flexible and innovative, and make sure its methods and tools are up to date.”
In France, which suffered two attacks in January and November 2015, intelligence operations have led to the arrest of some of the actors of the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people in Paris. France’s domestic intelligence agency, DGSI, said it had foiled 10 terror attacks since 2013, and arrested a woman who coordinated a planned attack on Orleans, carrying a false pregnancy, on December 23. In Germany, three men of Algerian descent were rounded up in three states on February 4 and imprisoned for planning a massive attack on Berlin. In Britain, the government said that it foiled seven planned attacks on London in the one year to October 2015. Scotland Yard arrested a man on December 23 for planning an attack on London.
Furthermore, countries share intelligence among themselves. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, confirms that the country collaborates with EU nations in sharing intelligence about terror groups. To stem the running sore of Boko Haram’s horrific war, therefore, Nigeria should sustain a massive intelligence network aided by technology in collaboration with the EU, the United States and other countries.
