African securityBoko Haram expands attacks as Chad’s military joins fighting

Early Sunday, Boko Haram Islamist militants have attacked Maiduguri, the biggest city in north-east Nigeria, from four fronts overnight. The militants, employing artillery and rocket fire, bombarded the city throughout Sunday. Yesterday’s assault was the third attack Maiduguri in the past seven days.

A senior Nigerian army officer said the militants were everywhere, attacking from all four roads leading into the city of about two million residents. The militants have blocked all roads leading in and out of the city, and continued shelling the Maiduguri’s international airport, which has been closed since the insurgents, back in December, launched an attack which destroyed five aircraft at a neighboring Nigerian air force base.

The pitched battles of the past seven days saw the first participation of Nigeria’s neighbors in the fighting against Boko Haram. Several fighter jets from neighboring Chad bombed the Islamist forces out of the city of Gamboru on Nigeria’s north-east border with Cameroon. The Guardian reports that Boko Haram insurgents had held the trading center since last August.

Last Thursday a Chadian army ground force liberated Malumfatori by evicting the Islamists from the border town, which was under their sway for months.

The active involvement by Chadian forces parallels the authorization on Saturday by the leaders of Nigeria and its four neighbors – Cameron, Chad, Niger, and Benin — to create a 7,500-strong force from Nigeria and its neighbors to confront the growth of Boko Haram.

Maiduguri is the birthplace of the extremist movement.

In the past, Nigeria had opposed outside involvement in the effort to defeat Boko Haram. The convening of the Saturday summit by Nigeria and its neighbors was a tacit admission by Nigeria that it could not defeat the Islamists without outside help. Nigeria is a country of about 173 million people and has one of the largest militaries on the continent, but the military has been hollowed out by corruption and weakened and demoralized by incompetence. In May 2013 Nigeria has placed the country’s three north-eastern states under a state of emergency and sent tens of thousands of troops to fight Boko Haram. The Nigerian military proved to be no match for the Islamists, and the militants have only expanded their reach and intensified their violence.

In recent months, Boko Haram has become more than an internal Nigerian issue, as the group began to operate in western Cameron and Western Chad. Nigeria’s inability to deal with the militants now became a regional issue, and the neighbors pressured Nigeria to allow them to help in the campaign.

In August, Boko Haram declared an Islamic caliphate in north-east Nigeria. Amnesty International says the group now holds about 130 towns and villages.

A study by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations notes that the Islamists have increased the tempo and intensified the ferocity of their attacks. They killed about 10,000 in 2014 alone, compared with about 2,000 in the first four years of the uprising (2009-2013).

There is a presidential election in Nigeria on 14 February. Those Nigerians who live in Boko Haram-controlled area will not participate in the elections. More than 1.5 million Nigerians have fled their homes in the north-east in the face of advancing Islamist forces, and they will not be able to vote, either, as Nigerian law stipulates that people can vote only where they live.

Observers note that President Goodluck Jonathan would not be overly concerned with that, since the north-east, even before the rise of Boko Haram, tended to vote for opposition parties.