Merciless Boko Haram. Boko Haram is a radical Nigerian Islamist organization. Mass burning of children by Islamists in Nigeria Boko Haram conflict in Nigeria
Means "Western education is a sin") - an extremist group of radical Islamists that arose in Nigeria and operates mainly in Nigeria and its neighboring countries. The official name is "Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad", which in Arabic means "Society of adherents of the spread of the teachings of the prophet and jihad".
Mohammed Yusuf (1970-2009) is considered the founder and spiritual leader of the group. After his death, the organization was headed by Abubakar Shekau.
The headquarters of the group is located in the north-east of Nigeria, in the city of Maiduguri, the administrative center of the state of Borno.
Supporters of Boko Haram belong to the Salafi sect. “Salafis” and “Wahhabis” are supporters of the same trend in Islam, which calls for the purity of early Islam: to focus on the example of the prophet, his companions and righteous ancestors (as-salaf as-salihin - the first three generations of Muslims), to be completely subordinated to religious tradition and the provisions of Revelation, which is accepted in the form in which it is expressed in the texts of the Qur'an and Sunnah. Members of the sect in mosques pray separately from other Muslims.
The goal of Boko Haram is the complete eradication of the Western way of life and the creation of an Islamic state based on Sharia law in northern Nigeria. Any person, even if he is a Muslim, but does not follow the laws of the sect, is considered "infidel."
The total number of the group reaches, according to some estimates, 30 thousand people.
The main sources of funding for the organization are robberies and funds received as ransoms for hostages. In the structure of the group, there is a detachment that specializes in kidnapping people for ransom.
Only for the period from 2009 to 2013, about 4 thousand people became victims of the group.
The list of Boko Haram atrocities is constantly growing.
On account of extremists explosions in Christian churches, police stations, shopping centers and military facilities. For example, only for one Christmas night from December 24 to 25, 2010 in the Plateau state militants carried out 9 explosions, as a result of which about 80 people died and about 200 were injured; January 20, 2012 as a result of almost 20 explosions in the second largest city of Nigeria Kano killed about 215 people.
Boko Haram carries out assassinations and kidnappings of politically significant figures: on October 6, 2010, the leader of the ruling People's Democratic Party, Avanna Ngala, was killed; In May 2013, former Nigerian oil minister Shettima Ali Monguno was kidnapped in Borno state. He was released after the militants received a ransom of 240,000 euros.
On April 14, 2014, extremists from Boko Haram attacked a school in the city of Shibok in pc. Borno and abducted 276 teenage girls from 12 years old. 53 of them managed to escape, the rest remain in the hands of bandits. On July 6, 2013, they set fire to a boarding school in the state of Yobe. The militants opened fire on the children running out of the school, killing 42 of them.
Boko Haram also uses suicide bombers for attacks: on June 17, 2012, in the cities of Zaria and Kaduna, suicide bombers sent cars filled with dynamite at three Christian churches crowded with people on the occasion of Sunday worship.
On May 5, 2014, 300 local residents were killed by militants in armored vehicles in the city of Gamboru-Ngala (Northeast Nigeria); On May 21, 2014, Boko Haram militants attacked several villages in the north of the country, killing about 48 civilians; June 4, 2014 in the villages of Attagara, Amuda and Ngoshe pcs. At least 200 people were killed in Borno in northern Nigeria. This is a partial list of Boko Haram atrocities.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau announced common goals with al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other extremist Islamic groups operating in Afghanistan, Iraq Yemen, Somalia, Syria, northern Mali and Niger, Cameroon and Chad .
On May 22, 2014, the UN extended Boko Haram international sanctions against Al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
About the most brutal terrorist group in the world
The Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram in the ranking of the "global index of terrorism", calculated by the number of attacks, the number of deaths and the level of material damage caused, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, in 2015 took the third "prize" place after Iraq and Afghanistan. However, by the number of those killed, it was recognized as the most brutal and bloody extremist group in the world.
On her account in 2014, there were 6644 lost souls. According to this indicator, it even surpassed the "Islamic State", whose victims then became 6073 people. However, until the kidnapping of 276 girls in April 2014 from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, and until the oath of allegiance to the Islamic State in March 2015, the activities of this extremist organization in the world media did not receive adequate coverage.
Established in 2002 by Muhammad Yusuf, a well-known Islamic preacher in the north of Nigeria, in the city of Maiduguri in the state of Borno, from a small religious sect by now it has become one of the most active terrorist groups in Africa. Its official name, translated from Arabic, is the "Society of Adherents of the Propagation of the Teachings of the Prophet and Jihad." In the Hausa language, "Boko Haram" means "Western education is a sin." The main goal of the group is the introduction of Sharia law throughout Nigeria, including where Christians live, the eradication of the Western way of life and the creation of an Islamic state.
At the heart of the conflict between the adherents of this movement and the central government of the country, in addition to the ideological factor, are primarily socio-economic reasons, exacerbated by chronic political instability and acute inter-tribal and regional contradictions. Despite the fact that the average per capita income in Nigeria is about $ 2,700 a year, its population is one of the poorest in the world. Approximately 70% of Nigerians live on $1.25 a day. At the same time, 72% of the population lives in conditions of poverty in the northern states, 35% in the eastern states and 27% in the western states.
The bulk of Boko Haram supporters are students of religious educational institutions in the northern regions of the country, university students and employees who have lost their jobs, a huge contingent of unemployed rural youth, urban lower classes, and religious fanatics.
Representatives of the Muslim elite of the northern states have also been seen in sympathy for Boko Haram. Ethnically, the backbone of the group is made up of people from the Kanuri tribe, which accounts for 4% of the approximately 178 million population of the country.
Having begun their terrorist activities in the state of Borno in northeastern Nigeria, the militants of the organization began to gradually spread it to other parts of the country, attacking the posts of the Nigerian army and police stations. However, despite the warnings of the Governor of the Plateau State, retired General Y. Jang, about the threat of a dangerous terrorist organization, the authorities in Abuja considered cases of attacks by extremists on their opponents as manifestations of ordinary banditry and religious clashes that have been taking place here regularly since the country's independence.
The apotheosis of terror was the attempted rebellion on July 26, 2009 by Boko Haram, led by its leader Muhammad Yusuf, to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria. In response, the Nigerian government declared an all-out war to eradicate this organization. The Nigerian army and security forces carried out large-scale operations to physically destroy the Islamists. In total, about 800 militants were liquidated, including their leader, who was allegedly killed while trying to escape. Within a few months, Boko Haram was believed by the Nigerian authorities to be over. But, as the further development of events showed, the group was not destroyed, it only stopped its activities for a while, going underground.
The Algerian terrorist group Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), operating in the Sahel zone, made a lot of efforts to revive Boko Haram. The surviving supporters of Mohammed Yusuf, who fled from Nigeria, met in Chad with representatives of AQIM, who offered them their services to restore the organization. Algerian terrorist leader Abdelmalek Drukdel promised his "Salafi brothers" weapons and equipment to take revenge on the ruling "Christian minority" in Nigeria for the murders of the "martyr Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf" and his Muslim companions. Many members of the group were sent to training camps in Arab countries and Pakistan. Abubakar Shekau, who became the head of the organization, traveled to Saudi Arabia with a group of his supporters, where he met with representatives of Al-Qaeda and discussed issues of military training for militants and obtaining financial assistance.
As for the sources of funding for the organization, back in 2002, Osama bin Laden sent one of his associates to Nigeria to distribute $ 3 million among local Salafists. And one of the recipients of this assistance was Mohammed Yusuf. At the initial stage of the group's activities, the main source of funding was donations from its members. But after establishing links with the Algerian AQIM, Boko Haram opened channels for receiving assistance from various Islamist groups in Saudi Arabia and the UK, including the Al-Muntada Trust Fand and the World Islamic Society. In February 2014, Nigerian police arrested Sheikh Muhyiddin Abdullahi, director of this foundation in Nigeria, on suspicion of financing Boko Haram. Even earlier, in September 2012, David Elton, a member of the House of Lords of the English Parliament, accused the same fund of helping Nigerian terrorists.
A significant source of Boko Haram's income is the kidnapping of foreigners and wealthy Nigerians. Nigerian Islamists do not shy away from banal robbery, making regular attacks on the branches of local banks.
Based on the fact that, according to the French Ministry of Defense, each recruit who joins Boko Haram receives an introductory bonus of 100 euros, and for subsequent participation in each military operation 1000 euros and for the seizure of weapons 2000 euros, you can make the conclusion that the financial base of the group is quite significant.
After its resurgence in 2010, Boko Haram exploded into activity, carrying out hundreds of mass terrorist attacks in the following years, which killed thousands of people. So, in September 2010, militants attacked a prison in the city of Bauchi, which contained members of the organization arrested during the rebellion. Approximately 800 prisoners, of which about 120 are members of Boko Haram, have been released. In August 2011, a suicide bomber in a car bomb rammed the entrance to the UN headquarters building in Abuja. The explosion killed 23 people and injured 80. January 2012 was marked by six explosions in the city of Kano, the second largest in Nigeria. The jihadists attacked the regional police headquarters, the state security office and the immigration office. A month later, Islamists stormed a prison in the city of Coton Karifi, freeing 119 prisoners.
In recent years, the scope of Boko Haram's terrorist activities has extended beyond Nigeria to Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, which the United States is assisting in training military personnel, supplying weapons, while defiantly refusing to supply weapons to Nigeria due to gross violations of human rights by the Nigerian army. towards civilians. The most resonant operations carried out by jihadists in Cameroon were the abductions from the home village of the wife of the country's vice president and Sultan Kolofat with his family in July 2014 and 10 Chinese construction workers in May. They were all released in October 2014, apparently for a ransom, but the Cameroonian authorities declined to comment on this. No less high-profile actions were carried out in Chad, where, as a result of explosions in the capital of the country, N'Djamena, arranged near the buildings of the police academy and the main police headquarters, by four suicide bombers, on June 15, 2015, 27 people were killed and about 100 were injured of varying severity.
In total, over the past 6 years in Nigeria and neighboring countries, about 20 thousand people have died at the hands of Boko Haram militants and more than 2 million have been placed in the position of temporarily displaced persons.
Against the backdrop of a sharp increase in the terrorist activities of Boko Haram, many in Nigeria began to wonder: is it not a banal political tool used by influential figures in the North and South of Nigeria, as well as external forces to put pressure on the federal authorities? In this regard, the statement of the spiritual leader of the Muslims of Nigeria, Sultan Sokoto Abubakar Mohammed Saad, that "Boko Haram is still a mystery" deserves the most serious attention. He urged the Nigerian authorities to launch a thorough investigation "to get to the bottom of the matter" about the group. “I think there is a bigger picture that no one sees, except for those who are behind it,” the Sultan stressed. According to some analysts, the purposeful elevation of Boko Haram, a purely local extremist organization, from the very beginning to the level of a national, and today a serious regional threat, is explained by the fact that they are going to use it to exacerbate interfaith and intertribal relations in order to weaken the central government. or even for the collapse of the state at a time that the forces behind it will deem most suitable for themselves. In addition to external actors, this may be of interest not only to part of the northern elite, but also to certain circles in the southern regions who dream of a “new Biafra” (about the secession of oil-producing states from Nigeria) and do not want to share income from oil exports with northerners.
In one of his speeches, speaking about terrorism, former President Goodluck Jonathan noted that there are even sympathizers of Boko Haram in the government and secret services.
As for the position of the United States in relation to the processes taking place in Nigeria, and to the terrorist organization in particular, this position, as well as on many other issues, bears the stamp of double standards. After announcing the inclusion of three leaders of the group led by Abubakar Shekau on the list of international terrorists, the US State Department, until November 2013, when the victims of jihadists began to number in the thousands, opposed the inclusion of Boko Haram on the register of terrorist organizations on the grounds that it "does not poses a direct danger to the United States” and is only a threat of regional significance. And this despite the fact that back in 2011, the head of the US Africa Command, General Carter Ham, noted that the three largest groups in Africa, namely the Algerian Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, the Somali Al-Shabab and the Nigerian Boko Haram strengthen ties to carry out terrorist actions against the United States. Each of them, the general emphasized, poses "a significant threat not only to the region, but also to the United States." And the leaders of Boko Haram themselves have repeatedly threatened attacks on American facilities, calling the United States a "prostitute country, infidels and liars."
The presence of such a strong leverage on the government of Nigeria as the terrorist organization Boko Haram, although sponsored by other forces, for the time being did not at all contradict the “national interests” of the United States in Africa, where China is beginning to acquire ever-increasing influence.
Gaining unprecedented momentum cooperation between Nigeria and China causes serious concern in Washington.
Trade between the two countries increased from $384 million in 1998 to $18 billion in 2014. The PRC has invested more than $4 billion in the country's oil infrastructure and has developed a four-year plan to develop Nigerian trade, agriculture, telecommunications and construction. According to conservative estimates, Beijing has invested more than $13 billion in the Nigerian economy as of 2015. In November 2014, a contract was signed between China and Nigeria for the implementation of the largest Chinese infrastructure project abroad worth $11.97 billion - the construction of a 1,402 km railway from the economic capital of the country, Lagos, to the city of Calabar in the east.
During his visit to Beijing in April this year, the current President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, noted "China's sincere desire to help Nigeria", stressed that "Nigeria should not miss such a chance." All this contributes to the rapid growth of the authority of the Celestial Empire and sympathy for it from the local population. According to a BBC poll conducted in 2014, 85% of Nigerians view the activities of the Chinese in their country positively, and only 1% disapproves. According to the experts who conducted this study, this gives reason to consider Nigeria the most pro-Chinese country in the world. And, as noted in one of the publications, this cannot but worry the United States. So do not be surprised if one day the world community suddenly considers, the observer writes, that the Nigerian president has "lost legitimacy" and the country needs "democratic transformation" under outside jurisdiction. Is it not for this reason that the government of Nigeria, quite unexpectedly, to the great regret of the Americans, refused in December 2014 the services of the United States in the preparation of a separate Nigerian counter-terrorism battalion, and in 2015, according to Nigerian media, turned to Russia, China and Israel with a request to assist in the training of special forces and supply the necessary military equipment and equipment to combat Boko Haram.
With the coming to power of President Mohammed Buhari in May 2015 and the creation of an inter-ethnic force consisting of 8,700 members of Benin, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad, Boko Haram caused serious military damage. The bulk of the militants took refuge in the hard-to-reach forest area of Sambisa on the border with Niger, the other part went underground, from where they continue to carry out terrorist attacks. Despite the losses suffered, the group still poses a great threat to the security of the region and retains combat capabilities for conducting serious operations. So, as recently as June 4 this year, it attacked a military garrison near the village of Bosso in the southeast of Niger, as a result of which 30 servicemen from Niger were killed, 2 from Nigeria and 67 people were injured. According to AFP, hundreds of militants were involved in the operation.
When assessing the prospects for the further development of Islamic radicalism in Nigeria, one should certainly take into account the dynamics of the Islamization of the country, which is noticeably gaining momentum.
According to the American research organization PEW, 63% of Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, are in favor of the introduction of sharia law, and more than half of those surveyed believe that the Islamic caliphate will be re-established during their lifetime.
If we add to this that the economic basis and other factors that contribute to the growth of terrorism, such as a huge gap in the incomes of the poor and the local elite, unprecedented levels of corruption, tribal and regional rivalry not only persist, but very often tend to escalate, then the fight against terrorism in Nigeria will drag on for years to come. This is evidenced, among other things, by the practice of counter-terrorist struggle against AQIM in Algeria and Al-Shabab in Somalia, which, despite all possible measures to neutralize them, continue their terrorist activities, spreading it to new countries. The recent bloody attacks by jihadists in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya confirm this unfavorable conclusion.
Special for the Centenary
بسم الله الرحمن الرحي
م
1. Boko Haram is an Islamic movement in Nigeria that was founded by Islamic scholar Muhammad Yusuf in 2002. in the city of Maiduguri, the capital of the state of Borno in northeastern Nigeria. The movement later spread to other northern provinces. In some studies, Muhammad Yusuf is described as a Salafi who was strongly influenced by the thoughts of Ibn Taymiyyah. It is mentioned that Muhammad Yusuf studied under his father, who was a faqih and teacher of Qur'an. Apparently, Muhammad Yusuf is a sincere person who decided to come out for the sake of Islam, he was an influential person, and his followers spread to various provinces of Nigeria. Nigeria's secular regime saw his appeal as a threat to itself.
An observer of Muhammad Yusuf and his followers will see that the name "Boko Haram" (meaning "ban on Western enlightenment" in Hausa) was not given by Muhammad Yusuf or his followers, but was given by others because of the group's call for a ban. Western enlightenment. Some say that the name of the group is "Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaa" while others say that the name of the group is "Harakat Ahlus Sunnah li dawat wal jihad" (Movement of Summons and Jihad of the People of the Sunnah), and still others say that the name of the group is - "People dedicated to spreading the teachings of the Prophet." But the political establishment and the media call the group "Boko Haram" because. the group demands Islamic enlightenment, the application of its laws, and works to ban the manifestation of any sin in the country. The influence of Muhammad Yusuf and his followers extends to almost all northern provinces. He and his followers have been forced into hiding by threats of attacks from the security forces of former President Obasanjo's regime. He and his followers began to show themselves after 2006, entering into a bitter confrontation with the secular regime of Nigeria, demanding the implementation of Islam throughout the country. Apparently, Muhammad Yusuf did not call for violence or the use of weapons as a method of his conscription, on the contrary, he insisted that the conscription should be carried out peacefully. This is reinforced by the fact that although he was arrested, he was released due to the lack of any evidence that he or his group had been involved in the violence. The people openly accepted his call, and he taught them. He stopped calling those infidels who refused his call. He owns the words: "I believe that Islamic law should be established in Nigeria, and throughout the world, if possible, but this should happen through dialogue."
All this clearly indicates that the beginning of this movement was non-violent.
2. It is believed that the formation of Boko Haram was influenced by social and economic factors since, with the participation of England in 1903. The Sokoto Caliphate, which ruled the country for more than 100 years, was destroyed. Nigeria is a country in which Muslims make up 70% of the indigenous population. In the northern region, Muslims make up the vast majority of the population - 90%. The total population of the country is 150 million people. Therefore, the task of various successful Muslim groups and organizations was to prohibit everything that is Western. These goals subsequently expanded to
the spread of Islam in the north and the implementation of Sharia law.
Islamic roots have been firmly established over the centuries. Islam entered the Kano region in the north of the country in the early 7th century and spread to the Hausa and Faulani regions of northern and central Nigeria through trade relations. Islam spread rapidly in the middle of the 10th century through scholars from Spain (Andalusia). In the Sharia courts of Nigeria, the madhhab of Imam Maliki is used, the majority of Muslims are Sunnis. Even today, Muslims proudly remember the Sokoto Caliphate, which was established in northern Nigeria in the 9th century by Osman Dan Fodio, known as Osman ibn Fodio.
It is clear that various Islamic groups and organizations of various orientations have arisen due to the Islamic atmosphere in northern Nigeria. The intense enthusiasm for Islam in the northern provinces forced successive secular federal regimes to agree to the implementation of some parts of the Islamic Sharia in the 12 provinces, even if this implementation was partial.
It was in this atmosphere that the Boko Haram movement, organized in 2002, arose in northern Nigeria. Muhammad Yusuf and a group of students who studied Shariah.
Boko Haram began as an organization opposed to Western enlightenment and working to restore Islam. The organization's spokesman, Abu Abdurrahman, told the BBC on June 21, 2001: “Our goals are wider than those we set out when we created the organization, namely the fight against Western enlightenment. Today we are demanding the establishment of an Islamic state that is not based on democratic rule. In the northern states, Sharia is not implemented in the true sense. In 2004 the group called for the establishment of an Islamic state and the implementation of Islamic Sharia throughout Nigeria.
3. As we mentioned above, their actions were not violent, on the contrary, they called for dialogue and presented their Islamic views using peaceful means. However, the Nigerian secular regime treated them with all the cruelty, and this influenced the change in the group's policy towards violence.
A: After the number of followers of the group in the northern regions increased and they began to call people to Islam by presenting Islamic views to them and entering into dialogue with them, the secular regime was afraid that more and more people were accepting the views of the movement that calls for the implementation of Islam. Therefore, the government began to pursue a cruel policy against the movement. People were shocked by satellite footage showing security forces killing dozens of members of the group in cold blood. Also, the Islamic Ummah was shocked by the news of the murder of Muhammad Yusuf in the dungeons of the security services after his arrest.
The attacks on the groups were extremely brutal and barbaric, in addition to the assassination of the leader of the movement, which revealed the regime's intense hatred of Islam and its followers. At the end of July 2009 Regime forces raided the movement's headquarters and killed hundreds of followers in an extremely barbaric manner. As a result of the mass genocide, 700 people died and 3,500 people were forced to become refugees. The security services arrested Muhammad Yusuf and shot him hours later, claiming he was trying to escape. No one believes the government's claims, even Human Rights Watch, which rarely takes the side of Muslims, protested against these heinous actions, saying: "The extrajudicial killing of Yusuf in the police office is a shocking example of the shameless violation of the law by the Nigerian police in the name of the rule of law."
B: On top of that, Muslims have been denied political rights for many years. The ruling secular "Democratic People's Party", created by former President Obasanjo (1999-2007), an agent of America, has announced a policy of pacification of Muslims. This policy has been abolished by current President Jonathan. The policy implied a rotation of power between the Muslim majority and the Christian minority, which, in fact, equalized the majority and the minority, and this caused the wrath of the Muslims. President Umar Musa Yar'Adua died in 2010. in the second year of his 4-year term, and in accordance with the policy of pacification of Muslims, it was understood that the current president of Nigeria was to be a Muslim. But the ruling "Democratic People's Party" nominated not a Muslim, but a Christian, Goodluck Jonathan, for the presidency. Naturally, Jonathan won the election, because. the ruling party was in power and could influence the outcome of the election. This led to chaos during the April 2011 elections in which 800 people died, mostly Muslims.
All this resulted in further rejection of Jonathan in the northern provinces. There were Muslim protests, which the regime brutally suppressed. Special forces battalion killed 23 people in an explosion in a store in the center of Maiduguri on July 24, 2011. Amnesty International noted that "special forces were brought into the city before the explosion, and they brutally killed many people" - and demanded that President Jonathan stop breaking the law, violating human rights, and not allowing the police and military to do what they whatever they please. There are indications that the regime was involved in these bombings and fabricated stories to achieve a goal in the service of American interests. It is appropriate to mention here that the newly elected President Jonathan on July 7, 2010. signed a strategic agreement with the United States on issues of homeland security, economics, development, health, democracy, human rights and cooperation in the field of regional security.
4. All these events - the persecution of a peaceful Islamic organization that is engaged in conscription, the murder of its leader in the most malicious way in the police office, the persecution of Muslims protesting against the regime's violation of the agreement on the rotation of the presidential office, and much more - led the group to resort to to violence, especially after the special forces raid in July 2009. and the assassination of its leader Muhammad Yusuf on July 30, 2009.
The group has been portrayed in the media as violent:
In September 2010 hundreds of prisoners who were members of this group were released from Maiduguri prison.
Thus, participation in these explosions of international forces along with the Jonathan regime is not ruled out, and blaming Boko Haram is done to justify security agreements and plunder the country's oil wealth under the pretext of providing support in the face of terrorism.
As we have already mentioned, a representative of the movement stated that most of the murders attributed to the organization are not actually connected to it.
6. In fact, the brutal crimes committed by the state against the movement caused acts of violence. Moreover, sometimes the state itself carried out these explosions, and so on. And after that, they blamed Boko Haram to justify the intervention of the colonial powers in Nigeria. In the future, these colonialists began to declare that the organization was associated with Al-Qaeda. In fact, it was they who presented Boko Haram as a threat to the world, as if the group had a fleet, military aircraft and tanks!
For example, General Carter F. Ham, commander of US forces in Africa (Africom troops; created in 2008) stated on August 17, 2011. during a meeting with Nigerian military and security officials: "Many sources say that Boko Haram is coordinating with al-Qaeda in West African Muslim countries." He added that this coordination poses a serious threat not only to Africa but to the entire world. In another statement, he said: "In fact, Boko Haram's links with other separatist organizations in Africa are of great interest to us" (AFP, 05/20/2011). Echoing the Africom commander, a Nigerian government spokesman, pointing to the type of bombs that were used last month, said that along with the absence of any concrete evidence, he is convinced that Boko Haram has established links with al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb” (AFP, 05/20/2011).
In an interview broadcast on the Internet on August 24, 2011, William Strausberg, a US State Department official, said: "It is well known that the Obama administration has made a decision to help the Nigerian government counter the illegal activities of terrorist groups in the country." Other countries such as Britain and Israel have also offered assistance to the Nigerian military. All this is being done to strengthen the position of these countries, in particular America, in order to maintain control in Nigeria under the pretext of helping in the fight against terrorism.
7. Superpowers lie when they assure the world community that they are helping Nigeria. All they care about is the country's oil wealth. It was oil that caused the artificial intensification of the conflict by these countries, especially America, to justify their influence in Nigeria. Nigeria is the 12th country in terms of oil production among OPEC countries, the 8th country among the largest exporters and the 10th country in terms of oil reserves. The American Petroleum News Agency suggests that Nigeria's oil reserves range between 16 and 22 billion barrels, while other studies put the figure between 30-35 billion barrels. Since 2001 Nigeria's oil production is 2.2 million barrels per day, while it can be as high as 3 million barrels per day. Oil exploration in Nigeria plays a significant role in the country's economy and accounts for 80% of income. Nigeria is a member of OPEC. Oil is located in the state of Delta, which is 20 thousand square meters in area. km. Oil plays an important role in the economic and political life of the country. The land of Nigeria is rich, located in the tropical zone and abundant in water resources, as well as offshore islands. 90 percent of oil is exported from this region. Along with this, Nigeria has three times more gas reserves than oil reserves.
In order to maintain control over Nigerian oil, the superpowers stage acts of violence and blame Boko Haram for this, and then, under the pretext of what they call terrorism, sign agreements with Nigeria in the military and security spheres in order to pave the way for the actual intervention and obtaining control over oil wealth. Consequently, not all acts of violence committed both before and after the elections are necessarily committed by Boko Haram. Many of these may be related to conflict between local parties associated with outside forces, while some may be related to anti-terrorism policies. In order to create a military foothold in Nigeria, the US announced a policy of combating terrorism in Africa during the Bush Jr. period, similar to how it was done around the world, under the pretext of which Afghanistan and Iraq were occupied. In Nigeria, things follow a similar pattern. This is not done for the sake of establishing peace in the country or the prosperity of the Nigerians, on the contrary, Nigerian oil and only oil is in the first place. In addition, Nigeria is a strategic region, because. is the most populous country on the African continent. From Nigeria, these superpowers can spread to neighboring countries to provoke unrest among the peoples in accordance with their policy of creating "militant warring factions" and then controlling these countries.
The least that these countries are burdened with is aid to Nigeria. On the contrary, their goal is to plunder its resources and wealth.
8. As stated above, Boko Haram's appeal was originally peaceful and remained so during the time of Muhammad Yusuf (may Allah have mercy on him). As a result of his brutal murder and inhumane attacks on Muslims in general, and this group in particular, the group was forced to take up arms. She was forced to do it, and fundamentally she is not violent. If the government stops violence against this group, it will most likely return to its original non-violent appeal.
However, the Jonathan regime, which is effectively acting on behalf of the US, is stepping up its bloody attacks on the group to further provoke them. Moreover, in order to serve American interests, the regime is holding Boko Haram responsible for its own bombings, in order to justify injecting US influence over British influence, and establishing hegemony over the country's oil wealth, some of which is pocketed by Jonathan and his entourage.
In conclusion, we want to give the group two pieces of advice:
First: Learn the Sharia way of establishing an Islamic state, namely the Righteous Caliphate, and follow the method of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) in this matter and return to non-violent invocation so as not to leave any reason for the superpowers, in particular for America, and the government of Jonathan, which cooperates with these powers. With this, Boko Haram will be able to thwart the plot of the US, Britain and the Nigerian government against Muslim land, who want to make it the theater of their intervention and plunder its riches.
Second: We advise Boko Haram to carefully screen those who join the ranks of the organization in order to close the door on proteges of America or England, who, having entered the group, commit violent acts, and the blame for them falls on the entire group.
Conclusion:
1. This group was formed in 2002. Islamic scholar Muhammad Yusuf (may Allah have mercy on him) who wanted to work on the path of Islam in Nigeria with the help of this group.
2. The group began with a call to ban Western enlightenment, and later expanded its activities to call for the implementation of Shariah.
3. The group began as a peaceful organization until the authorities intensified attacks on this group, starting with the reign of Jonathan, who hates Muslims and Islam, just like America. As a result of these attacks on July 30, 2009. the Amir of the group was killed. All this prompted the group to use violence.
4. The group was accused of acts of violence and explosions. Some of them were carried out by the group in self-defense, while others were staged by the state and agents of the superpowers, in particular the US and Britain, who are vying for influence in Nigeria. This was done to justify their intervention in Nigeria under the pretext of helping to fight terrorism, to establish peace and protect the country.
5. The Jonathan regime is trying to create the conditions for a civil war between Muslims and Christians by attacking mosques and churches. This is supported by his statement on January 8, 2012, given that the current leader of Boko Haram, Abu Bakr Muhammad Shekau, clarified on January 12, 2012 that "the group is not involved in these attacks" and added that "they are killing Muslims and Christians and blame it on the group to turn the Nigerians away from us.”
6. The superpowers, especially the US, which has established hegemony over Nigeria due to the fact that Jonathan is their agent, as well as Britain, which previously controlled Nigeria, are not interested in helping Nigeria, nor in establishing peace. They compete with each other for control of the country's oil and turning Nigeria into a foothold for mastering the entire African continent.
7. We advise our Boko Haram brothers to study the Sharia path of establishing an Islamic State Caliphate contained in the Sirah of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and return to a non-violent method so that the superpowers and the Nigerian regime have no reason to exploit these violent acts and justification for intervention in Nigeria, which will increase their influence in the country.
We also advise them to carefully check the people who join their ranks so that they are not infiltrated by agents of the superpowers to carry out violent actions. So that this does not give rise to the subsequent accusation of violence against the group.
Indeed, Allah (Holy and Great is He) helps those who help Him, He is the Almighty.
_____________________________
It seems to me a very interesting article, analysis and information. The situation was approximately similar with the "Ikhwans" in Egypt and with many other Islamic movements.
The scandal surrounding the deaths of four American special forces in Africa has raised too many uncomfortable questions about US covert operations on the Black Continent and about the support that the Americans provide to the most brutal and frostbitten terrorist group, Boko Haram *.
The American commandos were the last to leave the village of Tongo-Tongo, when the dazzling morning sun already appeared over the distant hills of the endless African savannah. Suddenly, Staff Sergeant Jeremy Johnson, who was driving a white Toyota Land Cruiser, slammed on the brakes.
Jeremy opened the door and stood on the running board of the car, peering into the bushes, shrouded in either dust or dawn mist. The branches stirred, and the staff sergeant saw dozens of armed men gliding noiselessly towards the village. Heck! It could only be the damned Islamists, who apparently decided to attack the sleeping village.
Ambush! barked the staff sergeant. - Fire!
Throwing up his machine gun, he fired a long burst through the bush - it was necessary to warn both the rest of the convoy and the self-defense forces in the village. Then he darted back into the cab and pressed the gas pedal to the floor, throwing the car at the militants - now the most important thing is to divert the fire of the militants towards yourself, at least for five minutes, in order to give the convoy the opportunity to regroup and attack the partisans. Then they'll just shoot those monkeys like they're in a shooting range!
Staff Sergeant Johnson did not have time to think out his thought: a hurricane of lead fell on the windshield, an unbearable fire pierced his arm and leg. Bleeding, Johnson got out of the jeep, looked back at the convoy - where are you, quick!
But the horizon was clear - no one was in a hurry to help him.
Staff Sergeant Brian Black, Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson, Sergeant La David Johnson, Sergeant Dustin M. Wright. All four were killed in Niger when a joint patrol of U.S. and Nigerien forces was ambushed by militants believed to be linked to the Islamic State group. Photo: © U.S. Army via AP
Country of slaves, country of masters
The first thing to know about Nigeria is that this country is the 8th largest producer of crude oil in the world. Oil provides 95% of the state's foreign exchange income, while Nigeria remains one of the poorest countries in the world: according to official statistics, more than 70% of the country's 150 million inhabitants live below the poverty line.
The Portuguese, who opened their first trading post at the mouth of the Niger River (or rather, the river is called Gir, but the expression Ni Gir in the local Hausa language means "country on the Gir River"), called this land Costa dos Escravos - "Slave Coast". Because it was the slaves captured in endless internecine wars between hundreds of tribes that belong to three ethnic groups - the Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo peoples, and were the most salable goods that local princes were ready to supply to Europeans in any quantity.
So, when today's African Americans reproach whites for the slave trade, they somehow forget that this business would never have been able to reach such proportions if it were not for the active participation of African kings who are ready to catch and sell their neighbors and fellow tribesmen. And the hunting of the tribes against each other, in fact, laid a real time bomb under the entire Black Continent: they still haven’t forgotten who was hunting whom.
The slave trade flourished on the Slave Coast until the beginning of the 19th century, when Sheikh Osman dan Fodio declared jihad on all whites. Soon the sheikh created the first African Islamic empire - the Sokoto Caliphate, the largest state in sub-Saharan Africa.
But the caliphate did not last long - already under the sons of the sheikh, tribal strife tore the Islamic empire into tiny shreds, which were subdued one by one by the French and British colonialists. And at the Berlin Conference of 1884, the lands of the former Caliphate were divided between France and Great Britain: the French ceded the northern regions, where they founded the colony of Upper Senegal and Niger, while the British established the Protectorate of Nigeria in the south.
Lost colonial paradise
Today, Africans remember seven decades of British rule as a "golden age" - after the British found huge reserves of minerals in the Niger Valley, Nigeria became one of the most economically developed colonies of the British Empire.
But wealth, as often happens, turned the heads of local princes who dreamed of ruling without any decrees from London. As a result, after a series of uprisings, Nigeria became the first country in Africa to achieve independence - this happened back in 1954.
Nigerian federal troops are pictured during an operation against Biafran separatist forces near the city of Ore, about 120 miles from Ibadan, Nigeria, Aug. 16, 1967. Photo: © AP Photo
True, as soon as the African kings felt the taste of freedom, both countries immediately plunged into the abyss of endless military coups and civil wars between tribes that remembered old grievances from the time of the slave trade. The Tuareg uprising swept through Niger, and in Nigeria, the Igbo tribes rebelled almost simultaneously. Next, the Hausa tribes, living not only in Nigeria and Niger, but also in Cameroon, Chad, and the Central African Republic, declared their independence. Inter-confessional conflicts have also begun - according to the latest census, only half of the country's inhabitants profess Islam. Over 40% are Christians, and one in ten Nigerians practice local ancestor cults.
Of course, the endless war put an end to the economic prospects of Nigeria. Today, in fact, there are two Nigerias. One country is the six largest million-plus cities, including the former capital Lagos and the new capital Abuja. It is this Nigeria that is called the "economic locomotive" of Africa with excellent development prospects. The other Nigeria is a poor and embittered Muslim province, dreaming of the return of the jihad of Sheikh Osman dan Fodio, who for Africa is the reincarnation of Ivan the Terrible.
Just in such Nigeria - in the poor village of Girgir, in the state of Yobe, in January 1970, Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of the most cruel jihadist group Boko Haram on the entire continent, was born in the family of a local healer and interpreter of the Koran.
Magic word "X"
As befits a folk hero, until the age of 32, Mohammed Yusuf did not show himself in anything so special. From an early age, his father sent him to study Islam in a madrasah, then he began to study theology at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, where he met the preacher Shukri Mustafa, who became famous in Egypt as the founder of the first Wahhabi group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2002, Mohammed Yusuf returned back to Nigeria, where he settled in the town of Maiduguri, in the northeastern province of Borno, which was already considered a "country of Muslims" at that time.
In Maiduguri, he opens his own madrasah - in fact, a recruiting center. He also opened a training base for "jihad warriors" called "Afghanistan". It is on this base that the "Society of Adherents of the Propagation of the Teachings of the Prophet and Jihad" gathers - this is the official name of the Boko Haram group.
This nickname was invented by the residents of Maiduguri themselves, for whom the official name "Society" sounded either too pretentious or too long. "Boko Haram" is formed from two words: the Arabic "haram", that is, "sin", and the word "boko", which in the language of the Hausa tribes means about the same as the Russian word "show-off". But in this African case, the word "boko" referred to urban slickers from wealthy families who received higher education either in the West or at universities by Western standards. According to the teachings of Mohammed Yusuf, it is precisely such a Western secular education that is the greatest sin that a person can only commit in his life.
In 2009, a British Air Force correspondent asked the leader of Boko Haram why he had such a negative attitude towards secular education.
Because the current Western education tells blasphemous things that contradict our beliefs in Islam, Mohammed Yusuf replied.
For example?
For example, rain, - Yusuf opened up. - We believe that rain is a creation of Allah, and not the result of evaporation and condensation of water caused by the sun.
But why not admit that it was Allah who invented evaporation and condensation?
Then we will have to admit Darwinism, and that our planet is a ball, and everything else. And this is a direct road to starting to freely interpret the words of the Koran, and this is haram! Anything that is contrary to the teachings of Allah is haraam, which we reject.
With a sense of overwhelming satisfaction
The debut of the Boko Haram militants took place in the spring of 2006, when the governor's elections began in the province. And Mohammed Yusuf delivered an angry sermon on local television, stating that devout Muslims should have and have only one boss - the caliph, so all Muslims who dare to take part in Western-style elections should cut off their hand or head, and unfaithful Christians - to throw stones at all.
Already in the evening, a crowd of excited jihadists marched through the city, rioting at polling stations. Along the way, the crowd also destroyed 12 Christian churches, demanding that the beaten clergy take an oath of allegiance to the non-existent caliph.
In response, the governor ordered the arrest of the preacher for inciting violence, but the arrest and prison term only strengthened Yusuf's image as a "people's hero."
After leaving prison two years later, Yusuf, along with members of Boko Haram, first settled in the city of Kanama, in the state of Yobe, then, under pressure from the authorities, he was forced to move to the state of Bauchi on the very border with Niger.
And in July 2009, Mohammed Yusuf with the militants again marked himself in the bloody field. Then a whole wave of riots swept through the Muslim world caused by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in one of the Danish newspapers. In the town of Bauchi, an angry demonstration also took place, the participants of which demanded that all Anglican churches and police stations be burned.
But Governor Isa Yuguda ordered the demonstration to be dispersed.
The next day, a group of Boko Haram activists attacked the police station, freeing the detainees. Many of the attackers were armed with machine guns, and 32 people on both sides were killed in the shootout. When the police fled in fear from the set fire to the area, it gave a signal for pogroms throughout the city.
First of all, the Islamists destroyed and burned all the Christian churches in the city. They put priests and parishioners on track, forcing them to ask the Muslims for forgiveness for caricatures under the threat of death on a video camera. They beat pastor George Orjich to death right at the altar after the priest refused to spit on the crucifix and convert to Islam. During the pogroms, more than 50 people were killed and several dozen were injured.
In response, the governor introduced the army into the state. The headquarters of Boko Haram in Bauchi was stormed. Mohammed Yusuf was arrested and taken to prison, where he died under unclear circumstances - as the police said, he was shot dead by escorts while trying to escape. But hundreds of Boko Haram sympathizers were sure that Yusuf was simply shot without trial or investigation.
Shekau
After Yusuf's death, leadership in the group passed to Abubakar Shekau, a former student from the madrasah in Maiduguri, who was responsible for training militants in the Afghanistan camp, as well as for supplying the group with weapons.
Nobody knows anything specific about this person. Moreover, the date of his birth is also unknown - somewhere between 1975 and 1980, no one knows the place of his birth either. At the same time, paradoxically, Abubakar Shekau is a typical "boko": he is fluent in several languages, including Arabic, English and French, and understands computer technology. Where a country boy from the most provincial "hole" of Nigeria, who never left the country, could receive such an education is a mystery.
In addition, the Nigerians also note the fantastic luck of Abubakar Shekau, thanks to which he invariably escaped from all ambushes. The country's authorities, which announced a $7 million bounty on the head of the Boko Haram leader, declared him dead three times, but Shekau invariably "resurrected". Experts have only one explanation for such luck: Shekau is under the control of foreign special services, which warn their "agent" about the upcoming operations.
One way or another, but it was under Abubakar Shekau that the provincial group of Islamic fanatics quickly turned into a threat on a national scale. From somewhere there were sponsors, and the latest weapons, and tons of explosives, and trained instructors. Under the leadership of Shekau, the Boko Haram group in just a few years managed to seize an area larger than Holland and Belgium combined.
Terror in black
On January 18, 2010, after Friday prayers, a crowd of excited Muslims came to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Fatima in the heart of the city of Jos. And she demanded from the priest to give them Christians from a neighboring village, who allegedly killed two small children in one Muslim family, they say, reliable witnesses showed that the killers hid in this particular temple.
As it turned out later, all the bloody events in Jos were the result of a provocation by the Boko Haram group, which declared jihad against Christians throughout the former Sokoto Caliphate. Disguised jihadists killed children, and then called on believers in mosques to go and take revenge on Christians.
Soon, a video message from Abubakar Shekau appeared on the Web, who called for the destruction of all Christian churches in the country, as well as all secular schools and higher educational institutions, all Western embassies and offices of international organizations. In addition, Shekau called for the burning of supermarkets. And for the first time in the country's history, Boko Haram declared jihad on Muslims themselves if they dare to criticize jihad.
The pogrom in Jos lasted three days. Armed with machetes and axes, crowds of jihadists rushed through the city in search of the Gentiles. Sometimes they found ancient old people whom the panicked families could not take with them. To the laughter of the crowd, the thugs dragged the unfortunate old people out into the street and beat them with hammers.
The violence then spilled over into suburban villages. For example, the village of Zot was burned and wiped off the face of the earth, and in the village of Kuru-Karame, more than half of the inhabitants were killed - over 100 people. The bodies of the executed jihadists were dumped into wells with drinking water, forbidding them to be buried.
Christmas terror
On August 26, 2011, an explosion occurred in the heart of the country's capital, when a suicide bomber in a car bomb broke through two security barriers and crashed into the doors of the UN headquarters in Abuja. As a result of the attack, a wing of the building was destroyed, two dozen people were killed, and about a hundred more were injured.
The next high-profile terrorist attack was timed to coincide with the Catholic holiday of Christmas on December 25, 2011 - then, right during the Christmas service in the temples of four cities - in Madalla, Jos, Gadak and Damaturu - bombs were detonated. The victims of the terrorists numbered in the hundreds.
An even more massive terrorist attack was staged by the Boko Haram militants two weeks later, timed to coincide with the feast of St. Sebastian - this is one of the most beloved holidays among African Catholics. It all started when a suicide bomber blew up a police station in Kano, the second largest city in Nigeria. Almost immediately after that, suicide bombers blew up three more police stations, then the headquarters of the state security, a telephone exchange, a passport service - in total, more than 20 explosions thundered in the city that day.
After that, the attacks continued in succession.
People killed in the riots lie on the floor of a hospital mortuary in Mubi, Adamawa state in northern Nigeria, on January 7, 2012. The attack on the town hall, which killed at least 20 people, is one of a series of deadly attacks claimed by the radical Muslim sect Boko Haram, which has promised to kill Christians living in Nigeria's mostly Muslim north. Photo: © AP Photo
"Jihad" of cannibals
In 2013, Boko Haram activities spilled out of Nigeria - for example, in neighboring Cameroon, jihadists attacked a group of French tourists who were in Waza National Park. According to Abubakar Shekau, the French were taken hostage in protest against France's interference in the affairs of sovereign African states.
A French family of seven, including four children, spent three months as hostages. In the end, the French government was forced to pay the kidnappers a ransom for the family in the amount of three million dollars.
Hostage-taking has increased. The most famous was the abduction in April 2014 of 276 schoolgirls, that is, all students of a boarding school from the town of Chiboka. The terrorists arrived at the school at night when everyone was asleep.
Kidnapped schoolgirls. Photo: © frame from YouTube video / TV2Africa channel
One of the witnesses later said: “When armed people in camouflage broke into the hostel at one in the morning, everyone at first thought they were soldiers, because they had an army uniform. They ordered us not to scatter, and then ordered us to get into the trucks, which they driven to the gates of the hostel".
After that, the terrorists, together with the hostages, fled in an unknown direction.
A few days later, the jihadists published a video in which they showed the girls for the first time - they were dressed in Islamic style, with hijabs on their heads. Abubakar Shekau declared the schoolgirls his personal "slave", which he intends to present to his best warriors.
The operation to free the schoolgirls continues to this day, although some of them have already returned home, telling horrors that even the atrocities of ISIS * pale in comparison. So, the militants turned into slaves not only the captured hostages, but in general all women who were not lucky enough to be on the territory of the caliphate. All slaves are forced to undergo "female circumcision". Moreover, many women after this barbarous operation died from blood poisoning, because medicine is haram! The terrorists sorted the men into "correct Muslims" and "infidels." The latter were enslaved.
Moreover, as the Nigerian police are sure, the members of Boko Haram themselves are not Muslims at all. Not so long ago, they stormed one of the group's training camps, under which the police discovered an extensive system of underground bunkers and tunnels dug by slaves. Usually, during the retreat, the terrorists blew up their underground communications, but this time the assault was so swift that the jihadists fled in a panic, forgetting to destroy the evidence. In the dungeon, the police found a whole warehouse of dismembered corpses, on the shelves were jars filled with blood and canned skulls. All this suggested that the Boko Haram militants actually practice traditional African cults with ritual cannibalism.
Under the banner of ISIS
In the spring of 2015, Abubakar Shekau swore an oath of allegiance to the terrorist group ISIS and Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi personally. Shekau became a "wali" - the governor of the caliph - the new state of the "West African province of the Islamic State."
However, they soon parted ways with ISIS.
Chadian soldiers display the Boko Haram flag for the benefit of the press in Damasac, Nigeria, on March 18, 2015. Photo: © AP Photo/Jerome Delay
It is possible that Shekau himself regarded his oath as a technical moment that allowed the group to expand the supply channels for money and weapons, but Caliph Al-Baghdadi himself reacted to his new province in a completely different way. And in August 2016, a new “wali” arrived in Nigeria - a certain Abu Musab al-Barnawi, who turned out to be ... the eldest son of Muhammad Yusuf who escaped execution.
An enmity broke out between the two “wali” from the very first minutes - which is not surprising, because Abu Musab considered Shekau to be the culprit in the death of his family. Allegedly, it was Shekau who betrayed the founder of Boko Haram to the special services in order to become the leader of the group himself. As a result, the group split into two parts, declaring jihad on each other.
The "dual power" continued until December 2016, when the headquarters of Boko Haram in Maiduguri was raided by the Nigerian Secret Service. Al-Barnawi was taken prisoner and, according to rumors, is now in one of the secret prisons of the CIA.
Shekau again united the terrorists and declared a new jihad - this time against foreign corporations. And the first to be hit were Chinese companies, which are now actively investing in Africa. First, the terrorists attacked a camp of Chinese workers employed in the construction of road infrastructure in neighboring Cameroon - just 20 kilometers from the Sambisa forest, which has become a real base for the terrorists. As a result of the attack, one Chinese citizen was killed, and ten more workers were kidnapped.
Chinese factor
New Year's Eve in 1983 in Lagos - the then capital of Nigeria - turned out to be hot: the air literally shook from the roar of firecrackers and deafening explosions of fireworks. Only on the morning of January 1 did foreign diplomats realize that these were not firecrackers at all, but real shooting - under the guise of a New Year's party in Nigeria, a military coup again took place, and Colonel Mohammadu Buhari, a brilliant graduate of the British Officers College in Wellington - "black Pinochet" came to power "and a supporter of the harshest methods. According to Nigerian newspapers, he began his campaign to restore order with the arrests of journalists and activists, as well as the fact that, under the threat of execution, he forced officials who were late for work to jump around the office like a frog.
Perhaps Buhari could have brought order to the country, but he hurt the interests of the International Monetary Fund and influential Western oil companies, which he actually kicked out of the country. Soon, Nigeria found itself in complete isolation - all Western powers broke off diplomatic relations with it.
In fact, the only country that did not turn its back on Buhari was China. And Bukhari did not forget this.
In 1985, a new military coup took place in the country. Buhari was arrested and imprisoned for three years - after another military coup, he was released, and General Sani Abacha, who came to power, offered him to head the Oil Trust Fund - that is, the entire "oil industry" of the country, which he led until 2000. Then Buhari returned to the political life of the country, was a member of parliament, and in 2015 he was elected the new president of Nigeria.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing April 12, 2016. Photo: © Kenzaburo Fukuhara/Pool Photo via AP
It was thanks to Buhari that China became Nigeria's main trading partner, displacing the US and Great Britain from these positions even at the beginning of the 2000s. Of course, the lion's share of Chinese investment - more than 80% - was invested in the development of oil fields, which were given to the state oil companies of the PRC. But the Chinese are also investing in other sectors of the country's economy, providing interest-free loans for infrastructure development.
Nigeria, in fact, became the first foreign colony of the PRC, a stronghold from which the Chinese comrades began to slowly but surely crush Africa under them.
New "Kerensky" in Africa
As soon as the PRC and the Government of Nigeria signed an agreement on strategic partnership, a "spring aggravation" began in Africa, when the provincial Islamist group Boko Haram - one of dozens of its kind - turned into a real army, equipped not at all with rusty Kalashnikovs, but with the most modern Western weapons.
Actually, the fact that the Americans support the Islamists "Boko Haram" is not a big secret for anyone in Africa - the first to officially announce this back in 2015 was the previous president of Nigeria, Jonathan Goodluck, who launched a large-scale military operation Deep Punch II against terrorists involving armies of four states - Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. As a result, in two years of hostilities, the military managed to recapture most of the captured settlements from Boko Haram, driving the terrorists under the cover of the Sambisa forest, which is not far from Lake Chad.
Former Nigerian President Jonathan Goodluck and former US President Bill Clinton on January 14, 2009. Photo: © AP Photo/Sunday Aghaeze
Moreover, as stated by the Chief of Staff of the Joint Forces (COAS), Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, they almost captured the Boko Haram leader himself, but the elusive Abubakar Shekau again fled, dressed in a woman's dress and hijab.
He even shaved off his beard! - the general was indignant. - But we can't stop every woman to check their faces under hijabs and what's under their dresses!
The General's anger is understandable. When last time they almost captured the leaders of the group, information appeared at the COAS headquarters from agents that Shekau ordered his accomplices to gather more women's clothing in the captured villages in order to slip out of the encirclement under the guise of freed slaves.
Then General Buratai ordered to inspect all women - especially those who move in large groups - everyone knows that Shekau even goes to the toilet only accompanied by bodyguards.
But as soon as the soldiers began to check the women, an international scandal erupted: all the newspapers only wrote that the soldiers of the Nigerian army, called upon to save residents from terrorists, were actually raping local women.
Chadian soldiers transfer weapons seized from Boko Haram fighters to a helicopter in Damasac, Nigeria, on March 18, 2015. Photo: © AP Photo/Jerome Delay
It was at Tongo-Tongo
It was under the guise of concern for human rights that the US and its allies refused to join the antiterrorist operation of African countries. Instead, the Americans and the French announced the launch of their own operation against the Islamists operating in Niger.
And soon American weapons were seen in the hands of the Boko Haram militants.
The details of the supply of militants were accidentally revealed during an unsuccessful operation that resulted in the death of four "green berets" from 3 SFG (Special Forces Group) - this is the name of one of the oldest American special operations units stationed at Fort Bragg.
It is interesting that at first the Americans generally denied everything - even the very fact of the presence of "green berets" in the country. Then the terrorists published on the Internet a video edited from records from surveillance cameras mounted on the helmets of special forces - they removed these cameras from the bodies of dead soldiers. As a result, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dunford, was forced to admit the death of US soldiers, specifying that a group of "green berets" were ambushed during reconnaissance. However, the facts published by the jihadists show otherwise.
On March 7, 2015, Nigerian special forces and Chadian troops participate with US advisers in Exercise Flintlock in Mao, Chad. Photo: © AP Photo/Jerome Delay
On October 3, 2017, a convoy of eight Toyota jeeps went to the village of Tongo-Tongo to deliver a batch of weapons and ammunition to the local self-defense forces - as it turns out, the Green Berets have been training similar units in Niger for five years to fight Boko Haram and their allies. And then a detachment of eight Americans (according to Dunford, there were 12 Americans) and two dozen local special forces arrived in the village in the evening and, having delivered the cargo, quietly spent the night until the morning. At dawn, the convoy went back, and for some unknown reason, two cars fought off the column and stopped near the village. It was there that Staff Sergeant Jeremy Johnson spotted a troop of fifty jihadists calmly making their way to the village for their share of American "humanitarian aid."
Staff sergeants Brian Black, Dustin Wright and David Johnson, who were following, also fell under the distribution. In an effort to create a smoke screen, they scattered gas grenades, but this did not save them.
The first deflection was Brian Black, followed by Dustin Wright, and only pitch-black African-American Johnson hid for some time in a shroud from the partisans, who, obviously, mistook him for their own. But then they killed Sergeant Johnson as well.
It is interesting that the rest of the convoy did nothing to save their comrades, although later a version appeared that the Americans and Nigerians simply did not have time to orient themselves.
The very next day, according to the Americans, investigations and a cleansing operation began in Tongo-Tongo. The village headman and the commander of the "self-defense forces", who - here and there is no need to go to the shaman - act in concert with the partisans, the Americans were taken to the local "Guantanamo". As a result, all the circumstances of the tragedy, which could lower the authority of the vaunted American "Green Berets" below the plinth, were reliably classified, and only thanks to the publication of the recording from the surveillance cameras of the dead soldiers did the world learn about the secret war raging in the African savannah.
And this war will continue - as long as the "great game" of the superpowers for world domination is going on, in which terrorists are assigned only the role of a means to mask selfish interests.
* Organizations banned in Russia by decision of the Supreme Court.
At present, the threat of terrorist attacks from representatives of the radical movements of Islam is acquiring enormous proportions, having already become a global problem. Moreover, criminal organizations that profess and propagate Salafi Islam operate not only in the Middle East. They are also present on the African continent. In addition to the well-known Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda, these include, in particular, the radical Boko Haram group, which has already become famous throughout the planet for its monstrous and horrific crimes. One way or another, but the plans of the leaders of this religious structure are quite large-scale, therefore, in order to achieve the “great” goal, they will continue to kill innocent people. The African authorities are trying to counter Islamist terrorists, but this does not always work out. What is the radical structure of Boko Haram? Let's consider this question in more detail.
History reference
The founder and ideologist of the above organization is a man who is known as Mohammed Yusuf. It was he who in 2002 created a training center in the city of Maiduguri (Nigeria).
His offspring was named "Boko Haram", which in Russian means "Western is a sin." The principle of rejection of Western European civilization was the basis of the slogan of his grouping. Soon, Boko Haram transformed into the main opposition force against the Nigerian authorities, and the ideologist of the radicals accused the government of being a puppet in the hands of the West.
Doctrine
What did Mohammed Yusuf and his followers want to achieve? It is natural that his native country should live according to Sharia law, and all the achievements of Western European culture, science, and art should be rejected once and for all. Even wearing a suit and tie was positioned as something alien. It is noteworthy that Boko Haram does not have any political agenda. All that the radicals know how to do is to commit crimes: kidnapping officials, subversive activities and killings of civilians. The organization is funded by robberies, hostage ransoms, and private investment.
Attempt to seize power
So, with the question of what is Boko Haram in Nigeria today, much is clear. And what was the group a few years ago?
She was just gaining strength and power. At the end of the 2000s, Mohammed Yusuf tried to seize power in the country by force, but the action was severely suppressed, and he himself was sent to prison, where he was killed. But soon Boko Haram had a new leader - a certain Abubakar Shekau, who continued the policy of terror.
Scale of activity
Currently, the Nigerian group refers to itself as the "West African province of the Islamic State." The number of the organization that controls the northeastern lands of Nigeria is about 5-6 thousand militants. But the geography of criminal activity extends beyond the borders of the country: terrorists operate in Cameroon, and in Chad, and in other African countries. Alas, the authorities alone cannot cope with the terrorists: they need help from outside. In the meantime, hundreds and thousands of innocent people are suffering.
Not so long ago, the leader of radical terrorists swore allegiance to the criminal organization "Islamic State". As proof of IS's allegiance, Boko Haram sent about 200 of its men to Libya to wage war.
Mass terror
The crimes committed by Nigerian radicals are striking in their cruelty, thereby terrifying civilians. Police killings, terrorist attacks and the destruction of Christian churches are just some of the atrocities committed by extremists.
Only in 2015, Boko Haram militants in Cameroon kidnapped people, during the pogrom of the city of Fotokol, they killed more than a hundred people, initiated a terrorist attack in Abadam. In addition, they killed civilians in Njab and abducted women and children in Damascus.
In the spring of 2014, the UN Security Council announced that the radical Nigerian Islamist organization Boko Haram had been designated a terrorist group.
Another egregious atrocity was committed by terrorists in the village of Chibok. There they captured more than 270 schoolgirls. This case immediately became widespread. Law enforcement agencies carefully thought out the operation to free the captives. But, alas, only a few were saved. Most of the girls were converted to Islam, after which they were forcibly married off.
Killing children
A shocking and monstrous crime occurred in the village of Dalori, located near the city of Maidaguri (north-east of the country).
It was found that members of the Boko Haram group burned 86 children. According to eyewitnesses who miraculously managed to escape, militants on motorcycles and cars broke into the village, opened fire on civilians and threw grenades at their homes. The bodies of children burned alive turned into a pile of ashes. But it just pissed off. The criminals destroyed two refugee camps.
Control measures
Naturally, the authorities could not but respond to a whole series of terrorist attacks by radicals. Moreover, they were obliged to punish them not only in Nigeria, but also in Cameroon, Niger and Benin. Consultations were held at which the problem of countering extremists was discussed in detail. As a result, a plan was developed for the deployment of the Mixed Multinational Force (SMS), which was supposed to eliminate the militants. According to preliminary estimates, the strength of the army of security forces should be almost 9 thousand soldiers, and not only the military, but also the police took part in the operation.
Operation plan
The zone of operations for the destruction of militants was divided into three parts, in each of which a state is based. One is located in Baga (on the coast of Lake Chad), another is in Gamboru (near the border with Cameroon), and the third is in the border town of Mora (northeast Nigeria).
As for the headquarters of the Mixed Multinational Force, it will be located in N'Djamena. Nigerian General Illiya Abaha, who had experience in destroying militants, was appointed to lead the operation.
The authorities of the countries hope that it will be possible to eliminate the Boko Haram group by the end of this year, believing that the war with the radicals will not take long.
What can slow down the process?
However, not everything is as simple as we would like. For the operation to be successful, SMS governments need to address domestic social issues as soon as possible. The militants use for their own purposes the dissatisfaction of Islamist citizens with a low standard of living, corruption and the arbitrariness of the authorities. In Nigeria, half of the inhabitants are Muslims.
One more circumstance that can negatively affect the speed of the operation cannot be discounted. The fact is that the authorities of many states of the African continent have been weakened by civil wars that have been going on for more than a year.
The government has simply lost control over part of its territories, where real anarchy reigns. This is what the radical elements take advantage of, swaying the Muslims, who are unstable in their choice of political orientation, to their side.
One way or another, but the security forces have already managed to carry out a number of successful operations to destroy terrorists. For example, militants were liquidated in the forest, not far from the city of Maiduguri. Also west of the city of Kusseri (northeast Cameroon), the SMS army eliminated about 40 members of Boko Haram.
Unfortunately, the Western media today rarely pay attention to the crimes against civilians committed by the Boko Haram organization on the territory of the African continent. All attention is focused on the Islamic State, although the threat posed by the Nigerian group is also very serious. Newspapers and magazines in Nigeria simply do not have the power to tell the world about their problems. One can only hope that the situation will someday change, and the West will not ignore the problems of terrorism in South Africa.