Nigeria claims it has degraded Islamic extremists. New suicide bombings suggest they remain potent

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria. Ten years after declaring a brief caliphate in the Nigerian town of Gwoza, just across the border from Cameroon, Islamic extremists female suicide bombers deployed there, the first in the conflict-ridden region since 2020, to sound an alarm: one of the world’s longest wars is still underway.

The first of three coordinated suicide attacks on June 30 targeted a busy wedding. The second was detonated at the burial ceremony of the victims, and the third in a hospital that was caring for the wounded.

At least 32 people in total were killed in the attacks, including nine relatives and friends of Mohammed Kehaya, a resident who is now concerned for his safety in Borno state, a hotbed of Islamic militancy that began in 2009.

Nigeria’s defense chief, Gen. Chris Musa, said the attacks were not a setback for the military but “a sign of desperation,” describing them as exceptional by extremists who once took the world by surprise when They attacked. He kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in Borno. in 2014.

“Some individuals would do everything possible so that we do not succeed,” General Musa said of the attackers.

However, several security analysts and locals interviewed about the bombings echoed concerns that the attacks must have required a lot of planning and coordination and portended danger in Borno, where some villages lack a security presence.

One of the extremists’ goals could be to distort the narrative that the security situation in the region has normalized, said Vincent Foucher, senior consulting analyst for West Africa at the International Crisis Group.

“It’s a way to show that the war continues,” Foucher said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but blame quickly fell on Boko Haram, which since 2009 has launched an insurgency to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in northeastern Nigeria. They have since split into different factions, which together represents the direct death of at least 35,000 people and the displacement of more than 2 million people in the midst of a humanitarian crisis with people in extreme need for outside help.

Two days before the attacks, Nigerian military spokesman Major General Edward Buba met with journalists in the capital, Abuja, where he discussed the successes recorded by security forces in their war against extremists. Even as he admitted that “it would take time and effort to completely destroy them,” he repeated an oft-repeated line among Nigerian officials: “We have greatly degraded the terrorists.”

In Borno, however, the attacks shocked families and left many wondering if they should pack up what was left of their belongings and flee once again.

“Parents have been calling to ask if their children would be safe if they went back to school,” said Yusuf Ibn Tom, a teacher at a public school in Maiduguri. “Everyone here is afraid.”

At the height of the insurgency in 2014, Boko Haram was considered the world’s deadliest terrorist group, killing at least 6,000 people that year alone, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index. Many things have changed since then that have made extremists much less lethal.

The army has pushed them towards the margins of the Lake Chad axis. The death in 2021 of the group’s founding leader, Abubakar Shekau, demoralized some members and made suicide bombings less popular. Clashes between the Shekau faction and that linked to the Islamic State group have turned the extremists against themselves, sometimes diverting the focus of military and civilian attacks and even contributing to the desertion of thousands who in a reintegration program.

But what hasn’t changed over the years is the extremists’ “operational prowess,” said Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Attacks like the latest “are rarely isolated incidents and are often part of a larger series,” Hudson said, without ruling out that more could occur in the future. “That will give a better indication of the relative strength of the current insurgency, as well as the ability of the Nigerian military to respond,” she added.

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Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.

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