Boko Haram is a jihadist terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria. Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002, the group has been led by Abubakar Shekau since 2009. Boko Haram was at one time the world’s deadliest terror group according to the Global Terrorism Index. The group has carried out mass abductions including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014. In March 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, rebranding as Islamic State in West Africa.
About Boko Haram in brief
Boko Haram is a jihadist terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria. Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002, the group has been led by Abubakar Shekau since 2009. Boko Haram was at one time the world’s deadliest terror group according to the Global Terrorism Index. The group has carried out mass abductions including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014. In March 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, rebranding as Islamic State in West Africa. In September 2015, the Director of Information at the Defence Headquarters of Nigeria announced that all Boko Haram camps had been destroyed but attacks from the group continue. In 2019, president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari claimed that Boko Haram had been ‘technically defeated’ However, attacks by Boko Haram have escalated and it still poses a major threat as of 2019. Of the 2. 3 million people displaced by the conflict since May 2013, at least 250,000 have left Nigeria and fled into Cameroon, Chad or Niger. The movement is diffuse and fighters with it follow the Salafi doctrine. Their beliefs tend to be centered on Wahabism, which is an extremely strict form of Sunni Islam. It opposes the Westernization of Nigerian society and the concentration of the wealth of a small political elite, mainly in the Christian south of the country. The name Boko Haram is usually translated as \”Western education is forbidden\”. The name Haram is from the Arabic and the Hausa word boko, meaning fake.
It is also known as Wilayat Garb Ifrqiya, meaning \”West African Province\”, since March 2015 after becoming part of the Islamic state. It was also reportedly known as Yusifiyya before the death of its founder Mohammed Yusfuf in July 2009. It developed into a Jihadist group in 2009 and is known for its brutality. It has killed tens of thousands and displaced 2.3 million from their homes and contributed to regional food crises and famines. In mid-2014, the militants gained control of swaths of territory in and around their home state of Borno, estimated at 50,000 square kilometres in January 2015, but did not capture the state capital, Maiduguri, where the group was originally based. The government’s establishment of a state of emergency at the beginning of 2012, extended in the following year to cover the entire northeast of Nigeria led to an increase in both security force abuses and militant attacks. In January 2000, local authorities imposed sharia law covering northern states covering 12 states and covering 60% of Nigeria’s population. The law was imposed by local authorities by Zamfara, covering northern and southern Nigeria, but only covering the northern states. The majority of the population live on less than USD 1,000 a day. It advocates strict adherence to Sharia law. It sees many other forms of Islam as idolatry and infidels. It also opposes the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria and has denounced members of the Shiite Sufi sects as infels.
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This page is based on the article Boko Haram published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 10, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
