This book offers a detailed examination of the counter-insurgency operations undertaken by the Nigerian military against Boko Haram between 2011 and 2017. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted with military units in Nigeria, Counter-Insurgency in Nigeria has two main aims. First, it seeks to provide an understanding of the Nigerian military’s internal role – a role that today, as a result of internal threats, pivots towards counter-insurgency. The book illustrates how organizational culture, historical experience, institutions, and doctrine, are critical to understanding the Nigerian military and its attitudes and actions against the threat of civil disobedience, today and in the past. The second aim of the book is to examine the Nigerian military campaign against Boko Haram insurgents – specifically, plans and operations between June 2011 and April 2017. Within this second theme, emphasis is placed on the idea of battlefield innovation and the reorganization within the Nigerian military since 2013, as the Nigerian Army and Air Force recalibrated themselves for COIN warfare. A certain mystique has surrounded the technicalities of COIN operations by the Army against Boko Haram, and this book aims to disperse that veil of secrecy. Furthermore, the work’s analysis of the air force’s role in counter-insurgency is unprecedented within the literature on military warfare in Nigeria. This book will be of great interest to students of military studies, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, African politics and security studies in general.

In Mobility, Mobilization, and Counter/Insurgency, Daniel Agbiboa takes African insurgencies back to their routes by providing a transdisciplinary perspective on the centrality of mobility to the strategies of insurgents, state security forces, and civilian populations caught in conflict. Drawing on one of the world’s deadliest insurgencies, the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, this well-crafted and richly nuanced intervention offers fresh insights into how violent extremist organizations exploit forms of local immobility and border porosity to mobilize new recruits, how the state’s “war on terror” mobilizes against so-called subversive mobilities, and how civilian populations in transit are treated as could-be terrorists and subjected to extortion and state-sanctioned violence en route. The multiple and intersecting flows analyzed here upend Eurocentric representations of movement in Africa as one-sided, anarchic, and dangerous. Instead, this book underscores the contradictions of mobility in conflict zones as simultaneously a resource and a burden. Intellectually rigorous yet clear, engaging, and accessible, Mobility, Mobilization, and Counter/Insurgency is a seminal contribution that lays bare the neglected linkages between conflict and mobility.

Boko Haram is the major threat to the Nigerian state, and has emerged as a destabilizing factor across sub-Saharan Africa. This is now a major focus of global policy-making, as between 2013 and 2014 insurgency-related deaths in Nigeria exceeded those in Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is the first to focus on the military nature of Boko Haram, the reasons for its success in those specific regions of the Chad basin it operates in and a detailed history of the Nigerian army's counter-insurgency – with whom, uniquely, the author has spent research time. The book identifies and analyses the battles and skirmishes on the front line, as well as unearthing a wider explanation for Boko Haram's military success and the causes of the instability in the region.

This book is the first attempt to understand Boko Haram in a comprehensive and consistent way. It examines the early history of the sect and its transformation into a radical armed group. It analyses the causes of the uprising against the Nigerian state and evaluates the consequences of the on-going conflict from a religious, social and political point of view. The book gives priority to authors conducting fieldwork in Nigeria and tackles the following issues: the extent to which Boko Haram can be considered the product of deprivation and marginalisation; the relationship of the sect with almajirai, Islamic schools, Sufi brotherhoods, Izala, and Christian churches; the role of security forces and political parties in the radicalisation of the sect; the competing discourses in international and domestic media coverage of the crisis; and the consequences of the militarisation of the conflict for the Nigerian government and the civilian population, Christian and Muslim. About the Editor: Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos is a Doctor in Political Science and a Professor at the French Institute of Geopolitics in the University of Paris 8. A specialist on armed conflicts in Africa south of the Sahara, he graduated from the Institut d'etudes politiques de Paris (IEP), where he teaches, and is a researcher at the Institut de recherche pour le developpement (IRD). He lived for several years in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. He has published some eighty articles and books, including Le Nigeria (1994), Violence et securite urbaines (1997), L'aide humanitaire, aide a la guerre? (2001), Villes et violences en Afrique subsaharienne (2002), Diaspora et terrorisme (2003), Guerres d'aujourd'hui (2007), Etats faibles et securite privee en Afrique noire (2008), Les humanitaires dans la guerre (2013), and La tragedie malienne (2013). Reviews For scholars, government officials, journalists, and civic actors, this book expands our understanding of this enigmatic jihadist movement, its genesis, evolution, and political implications. In light of the global significance of militant Islam, the book is indispensable for students of Nigeria, Africa, Muslim societies, and armed conflicts.-Richard Joseph, John Evans Professor of International History and Politics, Northwestern University This collection of essays on Boko Haram is much the best yet-well informed, coolly competent. With the insurgency still evolving, we really need this guide to its early days.-Murray Last, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University College of London This valuable collection assembles notable experts who analyze the messages and behavior of Boko Haram. The collection also provides nuanced treatments of actors involved in the conflict, including the Nigerian state and Nigerian Christians.-Alex Thurston, Visiting Assistant Professor, African Studies Program, Georgetown University

Concise account of a growing Islamist threat, which is active across West Africa

This book illustrates how Africa’s defence and security domains have been radically altered by drastic changes in world politics and local ramifications. First, the contributions of numerous authors highlight the transnational dimensions of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in Africa and reveal the roles played by African states and regional organisations in the global war on terror. Second, the volume critically evaluates the emerging regional architectures of countering terrorism, insurgency, and organised violence on the continent through the African Union Counterterrorism Framework (AU-CTF) and Regional Security Complexes (RSC). Third, the book sheds light on the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency (CT-COIN) structures and mechanisms established by specific African states to contain, degrade, and eliminate terrorism, insurgency, and organised violence on the continent, particularly the successes, constraints, and challenges of the emerging CT-COIN mechanisms. Finally, the volume highlights the entry of non-state actors – such as civil society, volunteer groups, private security companies, and defence contractors – into the theatre of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in Africa through volunteerism, community support for state-led CT-COIN Operations, and civil-military cooperation (CIMIC). This book will be of use to students and scholars of security studies, African studies, international relations, and terrorism studies, and to practitioners of development, defence, security, and strategy.

The primary objective of this book is to understand the nature of the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram’s goal of an Islamic Caliphate, starting in the Borno State in the North East that will eventually cover the areas of the former Kanem-Borno Empire, is a rejection of the modern state system forced on it by the West. The central theme of this volume examines the relationship between the failure of the state-building project in Nigeria and the outbreak and nature of insurgency. At the heart of the Boko Haram phenomenon is a country racked with cleavages, making it hard for Nigeria to cohere as a modern state. Part I introduces this theme and places the Boko Haram insurgency in a historical context. There are, however, multiple cleavages in Nigeria ̶ ethnic, regional, cultural, and religious ̶ and Part II examines the different state-society dynamics fuelling the conflict. Political grievances are common to every society; however, what gives Boko Haram the space to express such grievances through violence? Importantly, this volume demonstrates that the insurgency is, in fact, a reflection of the hollowness within Nigeria’s overall security. Part III looks at the responses to Boko Haram by Nigeria, neighbouring states, and external actors. For Western actors, Boko Haram is seen as part of the "global war on terror" and the fact that it has pledged allegiance to ISIS encourages this framing. However, as the chapters here discuss, this is an over-simplification of Boko Haram and the West needs to address the multiple dimension of Boko Haram. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, insurgencies, African politics, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.