Feature
By
Philip Obaji Jr.
The town of Madagali,
located just at the edge of Sambissa forest in Nigeria’s northeastern Adamawa
state, is a place where Boko Haram girls like to bomb.
Since Nigerian forces
regained control of the town from Boko Haram in 2015, bomb attacks on soft
targets have been frequent, and most if not all have been carried out by young
girls.
In the last two years,
over a hundred people have been killed by female bombers in four separate
attacks in Madagali. But after last month’s deadly bombing in which 56
civilians were killed, security was beefed up in the area, and anyone entering
into the town was searched first by local vigilantes – and then by the
military.
This new screening system
– though of much greater risk to security personnel – proved to be effective in
identifying suicide bombers. A couple of intended suicide attacks have been
foiled in the last two weeks by members of the Civilian Joint Task Force
(CJTF), a group of vigilantes helping the military fight Boko Haram, and also
by Nigerian soldiers.
On January 4, three female
suicide bombers were shot dead in Bakin Dutse, a village in Gulak town, close
to Madagali town. Officials said the three girls had planned to attack a market
in Gulak before they were intercepted.
“On seeing them (the
suicide bombers) fast approaching, they (the CJTF) asked them to stop but the
girls declined instead running faster, so one was instantly gunned down and the
bomb on her body exploded. So also the second girl,” Yusuf Gulak, a local official,
told ICIR Nigeria. “The third girl attempted to run but could not succeed as
she was also shot dead.”
A week before this
incident, the CJTF foiled an attempt by two female suicide bombers to attack a
cattle market in the restive city of Maiduguri in neighboring Borno State on
Boxing Day, last month.
The vigilantes suspected
they were carrying bombs when the girls rushed passed security and began to
roam round the market. One of them
accidentally blew herself up as the CJTF came after her while the other was
arrested by the vigilante group.
Boko Haram failing at two
consecutive suicide attempts is hardly heard of. The group’s previous failures
at hitting its targets had more to do with the naivety of its suicide bombers
than the alertness of security personnel. Now that it appears the CJTF and the
military are keeping an eye on every civilian movement in vulnerable places,
the jihadists are finding it hard to penetrate the way they are used to.
But Boko Haram has now
created a new form of attack – bombing with babies.
On Jan. 20, three female
suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing at least 11 people and injuring 14
others as they approached a check point where the CJTF screen those entering
Madagali.
One of the suicide bombers
had a baby on her back, an apparent move to fool security officials into
believing that she was a nursing mother and as such, shouldn’t be suspected of
being a terrorist.
Witnesses said she was
wearing a long hijab which covered the baby, and in-between her and the child
was a bomb which the infant was resting on.
“She was the first to
approach the vigilantes who didn’t suspect her because she was carrying a
baby,” a member of the CJTF who had been briefed on the incident by colleagues
present, told The Daily Beast. “After she scaled through, she stood at a corner
waiting for the other girls.”
But the others appeared to
be too scared of passing through security as they kept roaming round the check
point, reluctant to advance. When men from the CJTF approached them, they
detonated their devices, killing a couple of the vigilantes in the process. The
first suicide bomber then blew herself and the baby up thereafter.
“She (the suicide bomber
carrying a baby) must have envisaged that she would be shot by the soldiers
nearby if she didn’t act fast,” the CJTF member said. “It appeared their main
target was actually the market close to the check point.”
Using babies to carryout
suicide attacks may appear new, but this system has been tested by the
jihadists in the past. Then, it was unsuccessful.
On Nov. 28 precisely, a
woman suicide bomber carrying a baby on her back was shot by soldiers at a
checkpoint in Maiduguri. Her explosives detonated as a result of the shot,
killing the woman and the baby. Since then, no suicide attack involving a baby
has been reported.
The idea of using babies
as deceptions in the build up to suicide attacks may have been thought of by
Boko Haram from start.
When the jihadists began
to deploy female suicide bombers, the ladies had bombs tied firmly to their
back in the same manner used by many
women to carry their children in northern Nigeria.
In some cases, the women
wrapped bombs in thick clothes and placed them on their backs to make it appear
as if they were carrying babies behind them.
In October 2015, the
Nigerian army published photos of large cluster munitions used by two female
suicide bombers in an attack in Cameroon’s northern Kangeleri Mora District
which killed nine people and injured 29 others.
The explosives which
appeared to be French-made Belouga bombs are about the size of infants, and
were believed to have been placed on the back of the bombers who covered them
with their hijab.
Although each Belouga bomb
weighs 285 kilos and contains 151 bomblets (or grenades, as the French call
them) which may be too heavy for kids to carry, the smaller GR-66-EG
submunitions weigh only 1.3 kilos, or 2.87 pounds each, and may be the kind of
infant-sized bombs Boko Haram female bombers use in their suicide attacks.
“Now that the CJTF is
aware of this trick, it is going to be more vigilant,” said Yusuf Mohammed, an
advisor to the vigilante group, based in Maiduguri. “No one is going overlook
any lady because she is pregnant, or because she is carrying a baby.”
A large part of this
article originally appeared on The Daily Beast.
Leave your comment.
0 comments:
Post a comment