Boko Haram Heads South, More Security Experts Warn
Reuters Chief Correspondent on Nigeria, Tim Cocks, analyzes current tendencies in Boko Haram's activities and tries to predict future movements of the Nigerian terrorist group.
In his article In Nigeria, Boko Haram-style violence radiates southwards, the author notes how, until the often deadly and devastating attacks affected mostly the northeastern region of Nigeria, residents of the "more prosperous south" reacted with just "a shrug of the shoulders".
However, the feeling of relative security is quickly fading, replaced by anxiety, as Boko Haram and other violent groups inspired by it "are radiating attacks from their northeastern heartlands" across Nigeria, Reuters correspondent says.
A pattern can be identified in the growing number of attacks allegedly committed by Boko Haram, while the sect periodically claims responsibility for some of them via videos, the information cannot be verified at times.
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The Chief Reuters expert on Nigeria says military offensive operations taking place since May 2013 prompted the terror group to change their habit of "consolidating their power base in the northeast". Boko Haram doubled their "brutal attacks on civilians" in the north-east, at the same time striking in areas far from their strongholds.
Some experts say that the group, which made the whole world gasp by abducting and holding captive almost 300 girls from Chibok town in Borno State, "want to relieve pressure on itself in the northeast, where it has tried to carve out a de facto Islamic state."
Fatima Akilu, director of behavioral analysis in Nigeria's national counter-terrorism unit, however, warns that "Boko Haram's ambitions never were confined just to the historical Islamic caliphates of the north":
"Not once has Boko Haram said it wants a caliphate just in the north. They see their constituency as Muslims everywhere. It's not a geographic caliphate with a boundary that ends in the north," she said in an interview with Mr. Cocks.
The journalist also observes that some attacks have apparently been "calculated to stoke ethnic or sectarian conflict, such as one in May in the central city of Jos, a tinderbox of such tensions, that killed 118 people."
He interviewed Kayode Akindele, partner at Lagos-based consultancy 46 Parallels. Although the aforementioned attack "failed to ignite tit-for-tat reprisals" thanks to an "even balance of power in Jos," a similar effort in Lagos "may be more successful," Mr. Akendele said, as "Lagos is overwhelmingly Yoruba. They would have less to fear from counter-reprisals if they took out their anger on northerners."
"The Lagos government's very worried ... Lagos has a history of ethnic clashes, between (northern) Hausa and (southern Yoruba)," Akindele said. "There's a danger of that, if there's a serious loss of life. Lagos state also doesn't want to put off the investment world".
Similar views were expressed by international risk analysts, who calculated that Lagos may be the next major target of Boko Haram, especially considering the nearing 2015 presidential election.
Source: Legit.ng
