Insurgents :Foreing Fighters,Doctors with Boko Haram

Insurgent: Foreign Fighters, Doctors With Boko
Haram
Armed Soldiers
By Michael Olugbode
What had been widely suspected, but without
much evidence, was confirmed at the weekend,
as a captured Boko Haram insurgent revealed
that extremists from three neighbouring
countries were fighting in the ongoing terrorist
attacks in the northeastern part of the country
on the side of the sect.
He also said there were doctors, professionals
and artisans within the Boko Haram sect.
The account of the sect member reinforces fears
that the Islamic militant sect, Boko Haram, is
getting closer to al-Qaida affiliates and that
radical movements are spilling across national
boundaries.
The Nigerian Army had on Thursday launched a
massive air and ground onslaught against Boko
Haram in Borno State, killing 74 insurgents and
destroying the sect’s camp in Galangi and
Kawanti villages.
But in neighbouring Yobe State, members of the
sect had launched surprise attacks on Damaturu,
the state capital, and engaged the military in
gun duels for several hours, forcing the
imposition of a 24-hour curfew on the state by
the army.
"We do have members from Chad, Niger and
Cameroon who actively participate in most of our
attacks," the insurgent said.
The insurgent was presented to journalists on
Friday night by the military as a captured fighter
of the Boko Haram terrorist sect.
The claim about foreign fighters indicates the gr-
owing influence of Boko Haram, which started
out as a machete-wielding gang and that now
wages war with armoured cars, rocket-propelled
grenades and improvised explosive devices in its
mission to force Nigeria to become an Islamic
state.
The 22-year-old refused to give his name, for fear
that his family would be targeted.
The alleged fighter walks on crutches because of
a bullet wound suffered when he was captured
in a recent attack.
"We have qualified doctors who are active
members . they were not forced to be in the
group, they are more elderly than us," he said.
"We have mechanics, we have welders, we have
carpenters, we have professional drivers, we have
butchers, security experts, gun instructors and so
on," he said, displaying his lack of education by
his poor use of Hausa, the local language most
common in Maiduguri, where he used to live
with his parents.
The captured extremist member said religion did
not figure in his life as an Islamic warrior,
insisting his leaders "had never once preached
Islam to us."
He said the name of Allah was invoked only
when "we are running out of food supply in the
bush. Our leaders will assemble us and declare
that we would be embarking on a mission for
God and Islam."
He added: "I did not see any act of religion in
there. We are just killing people, stealing and
suffering in the bush."
The prisoner, who wore military fatigue pants
exactly like those of his captors, said foreigners
fight in his group of 150 but did not say how
many. "We have no members from Mali or Libya
that I know of ... But we do have members from
Chad, Niger and Cameroon who actively
participate in most of our attacks."
He said he and many other fighters would like to
surrender but are scared to do so.
"Each time they declare an attack, I feel sick and
terrified, so were most of my younger colleagues,
but we dare not resist our leaders: They are
deadly, our punishment for betrayal is
slaughtering of our necks."
According to him, Boko Haram had moved on
from targeting security forces and politicians to
attacks on soft targets such as school students,
villagers and travelers because of the formation
of vigilante groups "who now reveal our
identities and even arrest us."
Recently Boko Haram has carried out brutal
attacks on mainly Muslim civilians.
The new assaults "offer vital and disturbing
insights" that "not only confirm many of the
group's earlier developments but also al-Qaida
in the Islamic Maghreb's, or AQIM's, growing
influence over it," Jonathan Hill, Senior Lecturer
at the Defence Studies Department of King's
College, London, wrote in an analysis published
online this month at africanarguments.org.
A harsh military crackdown in three northeastern
states covering one-sixth of the country since
mid-May has forced Boko Haram out of major
cities and towns, but the security forces appear
unable to prevent regular extremist attacks on
soft targets like school pupils in which hundreds
have been killed in recent months.
"These atrocities bear many striking similarities
to those carried out by AQIM and its various
forbears in Algeria," wrote Hill, who is the author
of "Nigeria Since Independence: Forever Fragile?"
He noted, "despite the extraordinary efforts of
the security forces, Boko Haram appears
unbowed and its campaign undimmed."
Earlier this week, Minister of Justice and
Attorney-General of the Federation Mohammed
Adoke charged that Boko Haram was being
influenced from abroad.
"Nigeria is experiencing the impact of externally-
induced internal security challenges, manifesting
in the activities of militant insurgents," he said
while defending the country's record at a
meeting of the United Nations Human Rights
Council in Geneva.
Adoke did not give any details of the alleged
external influences.
Boko Haram fighters, including current leader
Abubakar Shekau, were reported fighting
alongside al-Qaida affiliated groups that seized
Northern Mali last year.
The movement has also boasted that it has
fighters trained in Somalia by al-Shabab — the
group that claimed responsibility for the most
spectacular terrorist attack in Africa in recent
years that killed at least 67 at Kenya's upscale
Westgate Mall last month.
Boko Haram has long been known to be receiving
funding from abroad.
Founding father Mohammed Yusuf was receiving
funds from Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia back in
the 1990s, according to Hill.
Saudi Arabia, despite its status as a Western
ally, for decades has been exporting to West and
East Africa its Wahabi brand of purist Islam that,
beyond the Middle Eastern kingdom's borders,
has been taken to extremes.
Niger and Chad both have said they fear
infiltration by Boko Haram.
Boko Haram members from Nigeria and
neighbouring Niger were arrested in December
in Cameroon, according to a report from Jacob
Zenn, an analyst for The Jamestown Foundation
and author of the report "Northern Nigeria's
Boko Haram: The Prize in al-Qaeda's Africa
Strategy."
He quoted the imam of a grand mosque in
southern Senegal as claiming that Boko Haram
was recruiting local youths there in August 2012.
In a report written in January, before the
military crackdown, Zenn said international
collaboration between Boko Haram and militants
in northern Mali, the Sahel, Somalia and other
countries in the Muslim world have allowed Boko
Haram to grow into an organization that "has
now matched — and even exceeded — the
capabilities of some al-Qaida affiliates."