Lying low for a yearīoko Haram went underground for more than a year after the uprising, but re-emerged in 2010 with assassinations and a major raid on a prison. Police claimed he tried to escape when they killed him, but witnesses said he was executed.Ī video later emerged of alleged security forces ordering people they suspected of being Boko Haram members to lie on the ground before shooting them dead. Around 800 people were killed in this round of violence. Yusuf was eventually captured by soldiers and then handed over to police, who shot him dead. In a violent campaign that stretched some five days they attacked police stations and engaged in gun battles before the military brutally cracked down. Yusuf angrily denounced the security forces and called on his followers to rise up against them. A five-day uprising and crackdownĪuthorities from a task force known as Operation Flush II in Maiduguri confronted Yusuf’s followers in 2009, wounding at least 17 Boko Haram members. The group has since said it wants to be known by a phrase that translates to “People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad”. It could have a wider meaning though, since “boko” may also signify “Western fraud” or similar interpretations. The most commonly accepted translation of the name, a phrase in the indigenous lingua franca Hausa, is: “Western education is forbidden”. Outsiders gradually came to know his Salafist sect as Boko Haram, based on their understanding of his teachings. Yusuf founded his own mosque in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. He later denied it, saying the youths involved had simply studied the Qur’an with him. It is unclear whether Yusuf played any direct role in the violence in 2003 and early 2004. He had a strict, fundamentalist interpretation of the Qur’an and believed that the creation of Nigeria by British colonialists had imposed a Western and un-Islamic way of life on Muslims. They had been followers of a young, charismatic preacher named Mohammed Yusuf. Here they violently clashed with authorities. The group now known as Boko Haram began to emerge in 2003, when a collection of like-minded Islamists retreated to a remote area of the northeast called Kanamma. Here is an explanation of Boko Haram and its violent insurgency: 2003 beginnings Today much of the north badly trails the south in terms of education and wealth due to a complex list of historical, cultural and other factors. Much of the world learned of the Boko Haram terrorist group after they kidnapped 276 school girls from their dormitory in the town of Chibok in 2014, but for years its steadily worsening attacks have been wracking parts of the country.īoko Haram must be understood in the context of Nigeria’s current conditions: it is Africa’s most populous nation, largest economy and biggest oil producer, but astounding levels of corruption have left it without basic development and infrastructure.ĭisparities between the country’s north, which is mainly Muslim, and its south, which is mostly Christian, are also important in understanding the conflict.
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