MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Extremists from neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon are fighting in Nigeria's northeastern Islamic uprising, according to a man presented by Nigeria's military as a captured member of the Boko Haram terrorist network.
His account tallies with reports from politicians and survivors of attacks, and it reinforces fears that Boko Haram, once a machete-wielding gang, now poses the greatest security threat to Nigeria's unity and may be growing closer to al-Qaida affiliates in Africa.
It comes the same week Justice Minister Mohammed Adoke charged that Boko Haram is being influenced from abroad. "Nigeria is experiencing the impact of externally-induced internal security challenges, manifesting in the activities of militant insurgents and organized crime groups which has led to the violation of the human rights of many Nigerians," he said, defending the country's record at a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
An Associated Press report last week, based on mortuary records from Maiduguri's main hospital, supported Amnesty International charges that hundreds of detainees are dying in military detention, many taken out of their cells and shot.
The government has failed to respond to requests for comment, but on Friday night, for the first time, presented an alleged Boko Haram detainee to journalists at a news conference in the northern city of Maiduguri.
The 22-year-old, walking on crutches because of a bullet wound suffered when he was captured in a recent attack, said he was forced to join Boko Haram but that the movement has many willing and educated members.
"We have qualified doctors who are active members . they were not forced to be in the group, they are more elderly than us," the 22-year-old told reporters at a news conference Friday night in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital that is the birthplace of Boko Haram.
"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. He refused to give his name because he was afraid his former colleagues would target his family.
The young man shed an interesting light on life as a Nigerian Islamic warrior, saying religion had little to do with it and that 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.
"I did not see any act of religion in there. We are just killing people, stealing and suffering in the bush," he added. The movement has been blamed for the killings of hundreds of civilians, mainly Muslims, in recent months.
The prisoner, who wore military fatigue pants exactly like those of his captors — many recent Boko Haram attacks have been perpetrated by fighters wearing Nigerian army uniforms — 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."
Analysts see a more nuanced evolution.
The latest brutal attacks on mainly Muslim civilians "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.
"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?"
Nigeria's security forces claim to have won the upper hand in the northeast, saying they have driven Boko Haram out of most of the region's cities and towns since a May 14 military crackdown on three northeastern states covering one-sixth of the sprawling West African country that is Africa's largest oil producer.
But Hill noted that "despite the extraordinary efforts of the security forces, Boko Haram appears unbowed and its campaign undimmed."
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Faul reported from Lagos.
- Politics & Government
- Unrest, Conflicts & War
- Boko Haram
- Nigeria
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