In Nigeria, Female Suicide Bombers Are a Terrorist Group’s Hidden Weapon

[Pelican Press 0]

In Nigeria, Female ******** ******** Are a ********** Group’s Hidden *******

A woman held a baby as she detonated a ***** over the weekend in northern Nigeria, ******** them both and at least half a dozen others, the local authorities said, putting an abrupt end to a rare lull in the ********* that has plagued the region for over a decade.

She was joined by two other female ******** ******** in Nigeria’s Borno State who ******* at least 32 and wounded dozens more in a series of bombings, according to Vice President Kashim Shettima. The attacks, experts said, demonstrated the complex and deadly role women can play in ********** insurgencies like Boko Haram.

The attackers struck three locations — a wedding celebration, an area near a hospital and a ******** service for the victims of the earlier ********, said Barkindo Saidu, the director general of Borno State’s emergency management agency. The attacks took place in Gwoza city, an area formerly controlled by Boko Haram for 15 years.

Though no organization has yet claimed responsibility, the attacks are similar to previous ******** bombings carried out by Boko Haram, an Islamist group responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of over two million people in the region. Boko Haram made headlines in 2014 after kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls.

Women are sent to ****** because they ‘blend in.’

Armed groups often use women as ******** ******** because they consider them less valuable to the organization and more tactically advantageous, experts said.

“The women arouse less suspicious, and they are able to penetrate targets more deeply,” said Mia Bloom, a professor of communication at Georgia State University and an expert on female ******** ********. Professor Bloom said ********** groups often use women when targeting civilians or civic infrastructure because they “blend in” and are less likely to be perceived as threats.

Some groups also view women as easier to manipulate, said Professor Bloom, who has interviewed many survivors of Boko Haram. Many of the women Boko Haram has turned into ******** ********, she said, have most likely been ********* assaulted and are traumatized. Some women may truly be radicalized, she said, but others believe “they have a better chance of survival as a bomber than marrying a Boko fighter.”

One group used female ******** ******** more than half the time.

********** organizations such as Boko Haram, Al Shabaab and the Taliban have used female ******** ******** in the past, but Boko Haram has used them more frequently than other groups.

The group has a history of kidnapping and holding young ****** ******** before forcing them to strap on explosives and sending them on ******** missions. Boko Haram used ****** so often in some areas that the ********* government launched a counterterrorism campaign featuring images of young children with detonators.

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by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point found that the group deployed women as ******** in over half of its operations, including ******** missions from April 2011 to June 2017. Many of the ******** were ******.

Boko Haram’s former leader, Abubakar Shekau, who was ******* in 2021, was notorious for sending young ****** and women on ******** missions, often against their will.

Boko Haram’s former leader, Abubakar Shekau, in a video released in 2018.Credit…via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow for the ******* program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization based in Washington, called Boko Haram’s use of women a “feature” of its militancy that is not typically seen in the West ******** groups of Mali and ******, where women are not often put in operational roles.

Even if Boko Haram does not claim responsibility for the *******, Mr. Hudson said, the women’s involvement shows terrorism in the region is not simply influencing disgruntled young men. “Entire communities have been co-opted into this,” he said. “You’re seeing a broad based, community wide insurgency.”

The region is plagued by *********.

Over the past decade, the Sahel, a vast semiarid region that stretches across Western and Central ******* has given rise to a number of Islamist organizations bent on insurgency. In addition to Boko Haram, the Islamic State’s West ******* Province also operates in the region.

Nigeria’s Borno State, which borders the neighboring countries of Chad, Cameroon and ******, has long been plagued by ********** *********, first at the hands of Boko Haram, and then by rival and splinter groups fighting for control of territory.

Boko Haram fighters seized Gwoza in 2014 and Mr. Shekau, the group’s leader at the time, declared a caliphate before the ********* Army pushed the group out in 2015.

Civilian governments across the region, including neighboring ******, have experienced a number of military coups in recent years. But both civilians and military regimes have struggled to handle the threats posed by Islamist insurgencies.

Environmental degradation, economic deprivation and extremely weak states have converged to create patterns of free movement across national borders, experts said, including that of Islamist militants.

“Even if one country was able to make progress, it is unlikely to impact the broad swath of this region,” Mr. Hudson said. “What we’re seeing here is perhaps the start of a resurgence.”

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#Nigeria #Female #******** #******** #********** #Groups #Hidden #*******

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