SPECIAL REPORT | JANUARY 2012 Is Nigeria’s Boko Haram the latest branch of al Qaeda or just another homegrown rebellion? The answer to that question is critical to the future of Africa’s most populous state and biggest oil producer BETWEEN REBELLION & JIHAD ON SCREEN: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a video entitled “A Message to President Goodluck Jonathan” that the group posted earlier this month REUTERS/INTELCENTER/HANDOUT BY JOE BROCK MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA, JAN 31 t about 10.40 one morning to happen. He grabs the person next to him battalion of global jihadists, capable of last August, Mohammed Abul and darts towards the lift. But it’s too late. thrusting Africa’s most populous nation into Barra rammed his ash-coloured Barra steadies himself, leans forward and the civil war? station wagon into a security gate security screens blur into white fuzz. The answer to that is not simple. There is Aoutside the United Nations headquarters in The suicide strike left 25 people dead and evidence – some of it detailed in this story for the Nigerian capital, Abuja, knocking it off the U.N. headquarters in tatters. It also drew the first time – that elements of Boko Haram its hinges. Barra’s 1996 Honda Accord then global attention to Boko Haram, the militant have received training from foreign militant crashed through the main building’s glass group from northern Nigeria which has groups, including North Africa-based al doors and slammed against the reception claimed responsibility for the attack and a Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM). The desk. string of bombings since then that has killed August attack was far more sophisticated On security tapes of the incident seen by hundreds. than anything linked to Boko Haram before. Reuters, a guard peers into the car, evidently As the bombings have grown in frequency Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan unaware that it is packed with explosives. The in recent months, the Nigerian government calls the group a terrorist organisation with grainy footage shows a dozen or so people and Western security officials have begun to global ambitions. In an interview in his in the reception edge towards the vehicle. grapple with the exact nature of the threat. presidential villa last week, Jonathan said Over 10 seconds pass in confusion before Is Boko Haram just the latest in a long list there was “no doubt” Boko Haram has links one man seemingly realises what is about of violent spasms in Nigeria, or is it the next with jihadist groups outside Nigeria. General REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE SOTUNDE REUTERS/AFOLABI ATTACK: A victim of an August 2011 bomb blast (top) that ripped through the United Nations offices in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, is loaded into an ambulance. A portrait of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan (below) on a wall in Lagos. Carter Ham, the head of the U.S. military’s Africa Command, said last year Boko Haram posed a threat to U.S. and Western interests. At the same time, Boko Haram remains firmly focused on domestic Nigerian issues. When its secretive spokesman claims responsibility for attacks, he almost always lists local grievances that have little to do with the core ideologies of al Qaeda. The group’s name means “Western education is sinful” in Hausa, the language spoken in northern Nigeria, the country’s Muslim heartland. But its anger is directed not at America or Europe but at Nigeria’s elites: at their perceived arrogance, their failure to deliver services, and the brutality of their security forces. Many Boko Haram members say their focus is on targeting officials who have locked up its members or misused state funds. Even Nigeria’s national security adviser, General Owoye Azazi, who sees a link between Boko Haram and AQIM, urges caution in defining the group. “We need to tackle Boko Haram from several perspectives,” Azazi said in an interview. “If you go back to history, there REUTERS/JOSEPH PENNEY PENNEY REUTERS/JOSEPH NIGERIA/BOKOHARAM 2 Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” It earned its nickname from the teachings of its founder Mohammed Yusuf in the early 2000s, in the restive northeastern city of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. Yusuf argued that Western education, or “boko”, had brought nothing but poverty and suffering to the region and was therefore forbidden, or “haram”, in Islam. He began peacefully – mostly preaching - and quickly gained a following among disaffected young men in the northeast. But his anti- establishment rhetoric and hints that Boko Haram was building an arsenal of weapons also caught the attention of the authorities. In 2009, the police clamped down on sect members who were ignoring a law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets. That sparked REUTERS/STRINGER a furious backlash. Police stations and HOME BREW: Locally made explosives found in a car in the northern city of Kano two weeks ago. government offices in Borno were burned to the ground, and hundreds of criminals are religious concerns, there are concerns “We have evidence that some released in a prison break, as the violence about governance, and of course, political spread across northern Nigeria. implications. It’s a combination of so many Boko Haram leaders are The government and army reacted with things.” force; Yusuf was captured and shot dead in trained outside of Nigeria. Their police custody. Five days of fighting left some FORENSIC TRAIL methods, their bomb-making 800 people dead. U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation technologies - who taught Boko Haram leaders still cite Yusuf’s agents arrived in Abuja within days of death as one of the main factors driving the last August’s attack to help with forensic them?” insurgency. The group remains fiercely anti- government and anti-authority, and resentful analysis of the bomb site. A report authored bomber, Richard Reid, had PETN in his shoe of the decades of corrupt, poor governance by those agents, Nigerian authorities and in his unsuccessful effort to blow up a flight that have impoverished its home region. independent security teams, paints a portrait between France and the United States in “You would never have believed the Boko of a sophisticated operation. 2001. Haram phenomenon came from these Barra was chosen because he was “low President Jonathan said Nigeria has beginnings,” said Shettima Dikwa, a doctor profile (and) well trained” and his attack evidence that Boko Haram members have at the University of Maiduguri. Dikwa is was “well planned”, says the confidential held meetings in North Africa. Azazi, one of a number of professionals in the city report, seen by Reuters. The car was packed the national security adviser, said the frustrated at the way Nigeria’s government with 125 kg (276 pounds) of manufactured advancement in Boko Haram’s weaponry and military have allowed the insurgency to explosives, including the plastic explosive and tactics points to help and training from escalate. Like others, he says local politicians pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and outside groups. sponsored armed thugs to help disrupt the triacetone triperoxide (TATP) - both highly “We have evidence of meetings between 2007 election and then abandoned them, powerful and volatile, and more potent than Boko Haram leadership and outside groups,” creating a fertile recruitment field. The easier-to-build fertiliser-based explosives. Azazi said, declining to give details. “We have governor of Borno state has denied these The explosives were used in a “shaped evidence that some Boko Haram leaders are allegations. charge”, which increases damage from trained outside of Nigeria. Their methods, Boko Haram’s attacks have intensified since a blast. Investigators believe the bomb their bomb-making technologies - who President Jonathan took power last April, in probably consisted of both stolen factory- taught them?” made explosives and home-made materials. the country’s cleanest election since the end of military rule in 1999. Jonathan pledged to “The only form of PETN that is commonly MILITANT BEGINNINGS fight graft and attract investment. But he is a available is the core explosive in detonating Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, survived Christian southerner, and in the eyes of many cord,” said Sidney Alford, a British explosives a brutal civil war in the late 1960s in which Muslim northerners it was a northerner’s turn expert. “You can get detonating cord from more than 1 million people died. Repeated to rule. the manufacturers, the army, or from blasting rounds of violence since then, often between contractors in the demolition or quarrying Muslims in the north and Christians in the CATCH-ALL LABEL, LOCAL STRUGGLES industries.” south, have killed thousands more. That backdrop doesn’t explain how the The failed ‘underpants’ bomber Faroup The violent spasms are often fueled by group went from drive-by shootings and Abdulmutallan, a Nigerian accused of politics, and so it is with Boko Haram. crude petrol bombs to shaping explosives for trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on The group’s official name is Jama’atu suicide missions against the United Nations. Christmas Day 2009 in an al Qaeda-style Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad, meaning A video posted on YouTube on Jan. 11 attack, used TATP. Another would-be plane “People Committed to the Propagation of the NIGERIA/BOKOHARAM 3 suggests the group’s leadership would like to be seen as part of a global jihad. Abubakar Shekau, who has run the group since Yusuf Attack NIGER was killed, appears in the 15-minute tape Pattern wearing a camouflage bullet-proof jacket, Wudil Maiduguri sitting in front of two Kalashnikov rifles. His In its first attack in January Kano beard, headscarf and hand gestures recall 2004, Boko Haram attacked the style of video pronouncements made by a town in Yobe State before BENIN Bauchi the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.