Between December 2020 and May 2023, Nigeria’s leading terrorist group, Boko Haram claimed 5,873 lives in over 400 attacks on unsuspecting locals.
SMB Intelligence, a leading geopolitical intelligence platform in Nigeria, revealed this in its chart of the week titled ‘Boko Haram fatalities.’
“Nigeria’s longest-running insurgency entered its 13th year at the start of 2023,” it stated, adding: “Over the past two years, the military has made significant strides against Boko Haram, buoyed by the suicide of longtime terrorist leader Abubakar Shekau during a falling out with another faction and programmes such as Operations Safe Corridor and Sulhu. However, the Islamic State-backed faction’s expansion into the country’s North-Central and North-West indicates that the work is still unfinished.”
SMB Intelligence sourced the data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
Boko Haram kills Leader for Planning to Create Factional Group
The presence of the terror group [Boko Haram] started fading when its breakaway faction, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), mounted pressure that led to the death of Shekau [Boko Haram leader] and continued supremacy fight with his surviving footsoldiers.
Earlier this year, Boko Haram killed over 200 Boko Haram fighters as scores of others surrendered to them. A few days later, Boko Haram took revenge as it attacked the ISWAP camp, killing at least 10 fighters.
In 2022, Boko Haram lost its men to ISWAP as seen here, here and here.
Amid violent attacks by ISWAP and terrorists locally known as bandits, Boko Haram jihadists still struggle to send fear across their strongholds, especially northeastern states where it started its mindless killings and abduction.
The group recently resorted to killings and kidnapping of farmers and scavengers who walked the forests of Borno State to fetch firewood.
Boko Haram in the last few years made its presence felt in places like Niger, Nasarawa and Kogi in the northcentral. The banditry-ravaged northwest was not spared by the terror group.
BOKO HARAM’S RECENT ATTACK
Earlier today, Zagazola Makama, a counterinsurgency expert and security analyst in the Lake Chad region, reported that six persons were killed in Borno when a transport vehicle drove over a hidden explosive planted by Boko Haram terrorists.
The vehicle, a Toyota Starlet, was returning from Adamawa State when it stepped on the bomb, killing five passengers on board. The driver would later be confirmed dead at a hospital after sustaining bomb wounds.
The incident, he said, occurred around a rural road between Bama to Kawuri in Konduga Local Government Area of Borno, where civilians routinely travelled to other parts of the state.
Zagazola said sources told him the attack was coordinated by Alhaji Ari Hajja Fusam, the Amir Jaysh of the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, from Gaizuwa camp, located a few kilometres from the scene of the attack.
