Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 - Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Boko Haram

aka Nigerian Taliban; Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad; Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad; People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad; Sunni Group for Preaching and Jihad

Description: Boko Haram (BH) was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on November 14, 2013. Led by Abubakar Shekau, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, BH is a Nigeria-based group responsible for numerous attacks in northern and northeastern Nigeria, and the Lake Chad Basin areas in Niger, Chad and Cameroon, that have killed thousands of people since its emergence in 2009.

Activities: BH was responsible for the August 26, 2011 bomb attack on the UN building in Abuja that killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more. The group is also responsible for a series of bomb attacks in Kano, Nigeria, in 2012.

Boko Haram has increasingly crossed Nigerian borders to evade pressure and conduct operations. In February 2013, BH claimed responsibility for kidnapping seven French tourists in the Far North of Cameroon. Security forces from Chad and Niger also reportedly participated in skirmishes against suspected BH members along Nigeria's borders. In 2013, the group also kidnapped eight French citizens in northern Cameroon and obtained ransom payments for their release.

In 2014, BH killed approximately 5,000 Nigerian civilians in various attacks. The kidnapping of 276 female students from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, brought global attention to Boko Haram's activities and highlighted its deliberate targeting of non-combatants, including children. In 2015, the group continued to abduct women and girls in the northern region of Nigeria, some of whom it later subjected to domestic servitude, other forms of forced labor, and sexual servitude through forced marriages to its members. (For further information, refer to the Trafficking in Persons Report 2015, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2015/index.htm.)

The group opened 2015 with the January 3 to January 7 massacre in the town of Baga, Borno state; reported casualties range from 150 to more than 2,000 killed, injured, or disappeared. The January 2015 attack and other BH operations in surrounding smaller villages displaced an estimated 35,000 people and resulted in BH control of Borno state. In February, BH expanded into Cameroon with an attack on the northern town of Fotokol, where it murdered residents inside their homes and in a mosque. On April 6, BH militants disguised as Islamic preachers killed at least 24 people and wounded several others in an attack near a mosque in Borno state; the attackers gathered people in the village of Kwajafa, offering to preach Islam, then opened fire. In mid-October, BH conducted a coordinated attack on the Baga Sola market and a refugee camp in N'Djamena, Chad; 33 people were killed and 51 others wounded. On November 18, two young female suicide bombers detonated explosives just before afternoon prayers in Kano, killing at least 15.

In March 2015, BH pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in an audiotape message. Later that month, ISIL accepted the group's pledge.

Strength: Membership is estimated to be several thousand fighters.

Location/Area of Operation: Northern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Lake Chad Basin, and southeast Niger.

Funding and External Aid: BH receives the bulk of its funding from criminal activities such as kidnapping for ransom, bank robberies, and extortion.

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