Who are Boko Haram - and how can they be stopped?

Late at night on 15 April, more than 100 girls (some reports say up to 200) were kidnapped from a school in Borno state, north-eastern Nigeria. The day before, in the capital city of Abuja, more than 75 people were killed when a car bomb was detonated during rush hour.

Both attacks have been blamed on Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group that has been attacking Nigeria's police, military, politicians, schools, religious buildings, public institutions, and civilians with increasing regularity since 2009.

Who are Boko Haram?

The group was created in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno, where last week’s kidnapping took place. It was founded by the Salafist Islamist cleric Mohammed Yusuf, who had previously led a radical youth group in the 1990s. The sect calls itself Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati Wal-Jihad, or "people committed to the propagation of the prophet's teachings and jihad." But it is more commonly known as Boko Haram, which roughly translates to “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language. The name stems from the group’s rejection of any political or social activity associated with western society – including secular education, voting, and wearing shirts and trousers.

What does it want?

Initially, the group was a local movement calling for the imposition of sharia law in northern Nigeria and the rejection of western culture. Yusuf criticised the Nigerian state as illegitimate and un-Islamic (even when the president was a Muslim), and preached a doctrine of withdrawal to northern Nigerian Muslims. The original aim was not to overthrow the federal government.

That changed in July 2009, when Boko Haram members in a funeral procession refused to follow a law requiring that people wear motorbike helmets. Heavy-handed police tactics triggered an armed uprising in the northern state of Bauchi, that spread to Borno, Yobe, and Kano. The army stepped in and more than 800 died. Yusuf was executed, his body displayed on state television. Other prominent figures in Boko Haram were also killed, in what international human rights groups condemned as extrajudicial killings. In the aftermath of this unrest, an Islamist insurgency began in earnest, with the group carrying out suicide bombings and assassinations in Maiduguri, Abuja, and elsewhere.

What has it done since?

Since 2009, the group has been responsible for at least 4,700 deaths in Nigeria. The attacks have been varied, and truly horrific. In September 2013, 65 students were murdered in their sleep at the agricultural college in Yobe state. As the central government struggles to keep order, truck drivers have been beheaded with chainsaws and hundreds killed on the roads of northern Nigeria. In February this year, 300 were killed by the group, including 40 children shot, stabbed, and burnt alive at a school in Yobe.

What are its links to Al-Qaeda?

Some analysts have said that, in recent months, Boko Haram’s operations have shown evidence of greater influence by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a branch of the international terrorist network based in the Saharan states of Mali, Niger and Algeria. Recent operations have involved a mixture of suicide bombers and gunmen – a trademark of Al-Qaeda – and multiple, carefully co-ordinated attacks. That’s a departure from previous tactics; the group used to focus on defenceless targets such as Christian congregations and school children, rather than security forces and officials, who are now being taken on. Northern Nigeria has a long history of political and religious violence, but suicide bombing is a very recent phenomenon. The group denies any association with Al-Qaeda.

Who makes up its membership?

The group is disparate and splintered. Security officials, both internationally and in Nigeria, have suggested that there are two factions, with one remaining focused on local grievances and the other seeking regional expansion. It is also worth noting that at the lower levels, many members are impoverished, poorly educated, and disenfranchised, rather than fully fledged Salafi ideologues. Certainly, violent clashes between Christians and Muslims, harsh government crackdowns, and police brutality have played a major part in the group’s radicalisation over the years.

What has the government done?

In May 2013, Nigeria declared a state of emergency in the states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, and assembled a joint task force of military and police units to battle Boko Haram. The group was mostly pushed out of the northern cities, but – as the continued violence over the last year shows – attacks have continued. This year alone, well over 1,500 people have been killed.

What else could be done?

Most analysts are agreed that, as with any counter-terror push, tackling Boko Haram will require a multi-pronged approach, comprising not just a military push, but the reduction of chronic poverty in the region and educational reforms that gain the support of local Muslims.

Speaking to the International Humanist News recently, the Nigerian writer and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka said that both religious “brainwashing” and “social anomalies” were responsible for the rise of the organisation, but warned against a simplistic approach that overlooks the ideological aspect. ”Provide social services, job opportunities, eliminate corruption, etc, etc, and Boko Haram will evaporate? Perhaps those who are sold on this reductionist line should be made to watch videos of interrogations of some captured Boko Haram members,” he said. His recommendations include the monitoring and regulation of religious schools, exposing youth and adults to secularism (“in short, an open, unapologetic campaign of counter-indoctrination”), fair governance, and economic justice.

Is this happening?

Such a joined up approach requires political will and unity. As it stands, things do not look good on that front. In February, President Goodluck Jonathan threatened to withdraw troops from Borno state after the governor said that the terrorists were better armed than the military. Such tit-for-tat does not suggest the kind of political will that is required to quell the insurgency. With presidential elections approaching in 2015, some have expressed anxiety that the fight for power will take precedence over the fight for peace. As Nigerian Senator Bukola Saraki recently argued in the Guardian: “Success will only happen when every leader, governor, senator and the president sit together and combine their political will to put an end to these senseless killings.”