“Around 150 suspected Boko Haram terrorists armed with rifles and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) attacked Mafa ward on more than 50 motorcycles around 1600 hours on Sunday,” said Abdulkarim Dungus, a Yobe state police spokesman.

“They killed many people and burnt many shops and houses. We are yet to ascertain the actual number of those killed in the attack.”

Dungus said it appeared to be a revenge attack “for the killing of two Boko Haram terrorists by vigilantes from the village.”

Bulama Jalaluddeen, a local official, added: “From these figures it has been established that at least 81 people were killed in the attack.”

“Fifteen bodies had already been buried by their relations by the time soldiers reached Mafa for the evacuation of the corpses.

“In addition to these, some unspecified number of dead victims from nearby villages who were caught up in the attack were taken and buried by their kinsmen before the arrival of the soldiers. Many people are still missing and their whereabouts unknown.”

Boko Haram and other jihadist groups have waged a 15-year insurgency in northeast Nigeria that has killed more than 40,000 people.

Central and northwest Nigeria have been plagued for years by gangs of criminals known as “bandits,” who raid villages, kill and abduct residents, and burn homes after looting them.

By working alongside these gangs, jihadist groups have increasingly established a presence in central Niger state, officials and analysts say.

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Relations between Nigeria and its northern Sahel neighbor Niger have been tense since the military took over in Niamey in 2023 and broke away from the regional bloc ECOWAS.

Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is head of the Economic Community of West African States, initially took a hardline but has since been trying to persuade the three junta-led states Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso to return to the group.

Nigeria’s chief of defense staff, General Christopher Musa, on Wednesday met in Niamey with General Moussa Salaou Barmou to discuss security cooperation, a Nigerian military statement said.

“Both parties reaffirmed their commitment to resuming and strengthening collaboration, with a view to ensuring regional stability and security,” it said on Thursday.

The statement said Niger’s chief of staff would visit Nigeria to finalize cooperation, and a Niger advisory group would be created to improve communication between the two militaries.

“Niger affirmed its readiness to resume active participation in security cooperation under the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJT),” the statement said.

The task force, involving Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad, has been key in battling jihadists active along the border areas of the four countries.

Niger’s military government is battling jihadists linked to the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram in the western Tillaberi region and in the southeastern Diffa area near Nigeria.

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The attack in Niger state shows the growing reach of jihadists from the country’s northeast as they forge closer ties with criminal gangs in central and northwestern Nigeria.

The gunmen raided the Anguwan Mai-Giro community in Shiroro district on motorbikes on Wednesday and opened fire on farm workers. Three women were among those killed, the sources told AFP.

Bologi Ibrahim, spokesman for the Niger state governor, condemned the attack and blamed “underworld” gunmen without saying how many people had died.

A security source and a UN staff member working in the region both told AFP that 13 people were killed and said Boko Haram jihadists were responsible.

“The attackers were obviously Boko Haram terrorists and they killed 13 people working on a private farm outside Magami village,” the security source told AFP.

“Most of the victims were shot in the head, which shows the terrorists attacked to kill,” added the same source, who asked not to be named.

Boko Haram and other jihadist groups have waged a 15-year insurgency in northeast Nigeria that has killed more than 40,000 people.

Central and northwest Nigeria have been plagued for years by gangs of criminals known as “bandits,” who raid villages, kill and abduct residents, and burn homes after looting them.

By working alongside these gangs, jihadist groups have increasingly established a presence in central Niger state, officials and analysts say, having previously seized villages and made camps in the area near where the attack took place.

In April, Boko Haram fighters killed two soldiers as well as vigilantes protecting nearby Allawa village. Troops were then withdrawn from the village, forcing residents to flee in fear of attack.

The UN source said the victims of Wednesday’s raid were residents of Allawa who had been displaced six months ago.

“They fled their homes to escape from the insurgents but ended up being killed by the same people they were avoiding,” the source said.

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Benin, which only recorded its first incident of extremist violence in 2019, is among the continent’s countries being increasingly impacted by terrorism. The number of recorded attacks has risen year-on-year since, reaching 20 incidents in 2022 before doubling last year. The Beninese military labeled 2023’s drastic uptick as “the sharpest rise in extremist attacks in Africa.”

An overwhelming share of this activity has occurred in the Park W-Arly-Pendjari Complex, a vast 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of land that makes up West Africa’s largest protected wilderness.

The sheer size of this area, alongside its location on the periphery of one of the world’s most violent regions, means Benin has struggled to halt the growing presence of Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), and to a lesser extent Islamic State-Sahel.

Kidnappings in Benin

Evidence of JNIM’s growing presence in Benin is also visible in the country’s increasing rate of kidnappings.

Last year saw northern Benin record at least 75 kidnapping (or attempted kidnapping) incidents, just over triple the number recorded in 2022, which itself witnessed a total higher than the combined number of recorded cases nationwide between 2016 and 2021.

The implications are grave, with kidnappings serving as one of the initial tactics violent extremist organizations frequently deploy to assert presence. Indeed, both JNIM and Islamic State-Sahel typically begin their encroachment into fresh territory by forging alliances with local actors. However, for those less willing to cooperate, methods designed to coerce and intimidate, such as kidnappings, will be used.

This is because they can provide much-needed intel on the local terrain, strike fear into local communities, and announce the presence of an extremist organization as a legitimate violent actor, as well as an additional source of income.

Perhaps most importantly, kidnappings help gradually erode the belief that the state is the primary security provider.

Pre-Existing Grievances

JNIM has found success in northern Benin over recent years, but this says as much about the group’s capabilities as it does about some of the Beninese government policies. JNIM’s expansion would have been far more difficult without the pre-existing grievances in the W-Arly-Pendjari Complex and surrounding areas.

A series of land reforms and sedentarization laws aimed at modernizing its agro-pastoral industry and conserving the local ecosystem, as well as the closure of the Park Complex to the public after two French tourists were kidnapped several years ago, have all been accused of exacerbating farmer and pastoral grievances and conflicts.

JNIM has been able to leverage some of these frustrations to expand deeper into the Park Complex, in turn allowing it to become an increasingly dominant actor in Benin.

Underscoring this notion is a recent study carried out in the Atakora Department, which houses the Pendjari National Park and the largest section of Benin’s border with Burkina Faso. Fieldwork found that 20 percent of participants personally knew someone who had joined JNIM, while 45 percent reported seeing JNIM in their community, and 30 percent had personally interacted with JNIM militants.

Benin now finds itself at a crossroads, although there are several steps the country should take to try to tackle the growing threat posed by violent extremist organizations in its territory.

Address Socio-Economic Pressures

In the Park W-Arly-Pendjari Complex, the government should better address the socio-economic pressures facing farmer and pastoralist communities, even if it comes at a slight environmental cost.

This can be done by declassifying segments of the park’s buffer zones for these communities to use, which would likely alleviate overall levels of conflict and competition.

While this could be a short-term solution, a comprehensive strategy aimed at providing sustainable economic opportunities to the affected areas in northern Benin should also be considered.

Military Cooperation With Neighbors

Benin must also increase military cooperation with Burkina Faso and Niger, the latter of whom the country is currently embroiled in a lengthy diplomatic spat with. With their relationship fraught and Niger facing its own issues with violent extremist organizations, Niamey is unlikely to prioritize terrorist activity near its border with Benin.

This fallout does not only rule out military assistance and cooperation, it has also meant that Niger has kept its side of the border closed for almost a year now. Until reopened, local communities in northern Benin that once relied on cross-border trade will continue to be negatively impacted, further creating socio-economic conditions that are conducive to violent extremists.

While facing its own extensive issues with extremism, Nigeria will be concerned that JNIM militants from the Sahel have transited through Benin and settled in the western Kainji Lake National Park. The threat here is relatively nascent compared to elsewhere in Nigeria, meaning Abuja potentially has a window of opportunity to combat JNIM before it morphs into a far larger threat.

To do so, it will need to cooperate intensely with Benin, and even shoulder more of the burden in attempting to tackle this cross-border threat. Indeed, there is evidence that bandits from Nigeria are now crossing into JNIM-held zones in Benin, underscoring how failing to address this issue will benefit extremist groups traditionally found on opposite sides of the shared border.

Nigeria has ample experience combatting such groups, even if its success in doing so is limited, meaning it must share its experience and knowledge with Benin to implement an effective counter-terrorism strategy that can address all facets of the insecurity multiplying across their shared border.

Western Community Should Help

Finally, the Western community should play a more proactive role in helping Benin.

This should be done via a mixture of civilian and military initiatives. While improving the capacities and size of the Beninese security apparatus will be helpful in fighting extremist groups, providing an outlet for disenfranchised members to leave their groups will be equally productive in the long run.

The US and EU should set up and sponsor disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs immediately, as they do elsewhere in the region.

The fate of Benin remains unclear, although it is evident that if trends of the past few years are allowed to progress at their current rates, the country will likely suffer a similar fate as some of its West African peers — many of whom contain some of the highest levels of terrorism and violence in the world.

Charlie Werb is an analyst, writer, and commentator focussing on sub-Saharan African security issues, with a particular emphasis on Islamist extremist groups in the region.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.

The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people – do you want to send us yours? Click here to submit an op-ed.

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The Wednesday night blast in Kawuri village in Borno State was one of the deadliest in recent years in northeast Nigeria, where violence from a grinding jihadist conflict has been on the decline.

“There was an explosion at a tea joint in Kawuri around 8:00 pm yesterday. We have recovered 19 dead bodies and 27 injured,” Ibrahim Liman, a member of an anti-jihadist militia that works with the army, told AFP.

Two other militiamen confirmed the toll in Kawuri, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the state capital Maiduguri.

The attack came just weeks after multiple suicide attackers killed 32 people in Borno State’s Gwoza area when they targeted a wedding, a hospital, and a funeral.

No group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s blast or the Gwoza attacks, but the Boko Haram jihadist group and their rivals Islamic State West Africa Province are both active in Borno.

Large bomb attacks in towns have become rare since the army pushed militants back from territory they controlled at the height of the conflict in 2014, though they still carry out assaults and ambushes in rural areas.

Tackling insecurity was one of the priorities for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he came to office more than a year ago. Nigeria’s armed forces are also fighting heavily armed gangs in the country’s northwest.

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The Mixed Multinational Force was created in 1994 to combat cross-border crime, but its mandate was extended to include fighting Boko Haram, whose armed campaigns have spread from their Nigerian base to the three neighboring countries.

They are “14 men, 23 women, and 32 children”, said Lieutenant-Colonel Abubakar Abdullahi, the MMF’s military information spokesman.

“Wives are considered terrorists because they are used for suicide attacks,” he said.

A Boko Haram fighter who had escaped from a camp in Libye Soroa, Niger, surrendered to the MMF on  July 1 and handed over “an AK-47 rifle, four magazines and a large quantity of ammunition,” the international force said in a statement.

Fifty-six other people — 13 male members of Boko Haram, accompanied by their wives and children — surrendered following a “maritime operation by Cameroonian and Nigerian forces” on July 6 in Cameroon’s Far North, according to the same source.

On the same day, “12 members of terrorist families – five women and seven children – were rescued”, the statement added.

The MMF, which comprises the armed forces of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, also called on Boko Haram fighters to “lay down their arms and surrender to the authorities in order to establish lasting peace in the Lake Chad Basin region.”

These surrenders come at a time when an operation dubbed “Lake Sanity II” is under way.

The MFF’s objective is to track down, capture or neutralize members of Boko Haram based in the Lake Chad region, destroy their camps, and seize their weapons.

Launched in April, it is due to end on 24 July.

At the beginning of July, the regional military alliance announced the death of 70 jihadists in the Lake Chad area, which straddles Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad, during a military offensive.

The jihadist conflict began in 2009 in north-east Nigeria with Boko Haram, then with the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), and has left 40,000 people dead and around 2 million displaced in Nigeria.

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The vast Lake Chad region, shared by Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad, is a notorious bolthole for both Boko Haram and splinter group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

They have set up camps on islands in its marshlands and are locked in a struggle for territorial control.

“Recent aerial operations have successfully obliterated terrorist camps situated on islets across the Cameroonian and Nigerian territories of Lake Chad, killing many terrorists and causing others to flee into Chad,” the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) said in a statement on Monday.

In Chad, the fighters were pursued by the Chadian Rapid Intervention Force, MNJTF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abubakar Abdullahi said in the statement.

“This action neutralized 70 terrorists and dismantled 5 camps,” he said, without specifying which group was targeted.

The Chadian army on Sunday said that “more than 70 terrorists were put out of action” with the help of the Rapid Intervention Force, an elite unit recently created by Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno.

The Chadian military described its actions as a “series of air-land nautical military manoeuvres.”

The MNJTF, involving troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, was formed in 1994 primarily to combat cross-border crime. Its mandate was later expanded to include fighting jihadists whose armed campaigns have spread from Nigeria into neighboring countries.

On Saturday multiple suicide bombings in the northeast Nigerian town of Gwoza near the border with Cameroon killed more than 30 people and left dozens injured in the latest violence to hit the region, which authorities blamed on Boko Haram.

The suicide attacks highlighted Nigeria’s struggle to end the grinding jihadist conflict that has claimed over 40,000 lives and displaced around two million people in the country’s northeast since 2009.

On Tuesday army spokesman Major General Edward Buba said the bombings were “a response to recent successes in ongoing military operations.”

In recent weeks, the Nigerian military has intensified air strikes on jihadist camps in Lake Chad, putting pressure on the militants who have responded with deadly attacks on fishermen, accusing them of providing information on their positions to the military.

Nigeria is also fighting gangs of criminals known as bandits in the northwest and central region, where they raid villages, kill and abduct residents, and burn homes after looting them.

On Monday four Nigerian policemen were killed when bandits opened fire on a police patrol van in an ambush outside Zandam village in Katsina state’s Jibia district near the border with Niger, a police spokesman said.

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In one of three blasts in the town of Gwoza, a female attacker with a baby strapped to her back detonated explosives in the middle of a wedding ceremony, according to a police spokesman.

The other attacks in the border town across from Cameroon targeted a hospital and a funeral for victims of the earlier wedding blast, authorities said.

At least 18 people were killed and 42 others injured in the attacks, according to the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).

“So far, 18 deaths comprising children, men, females and pregnant women” have been reported, said Barkindo Saidu, the head of the agency, in a report seen by AFP.

Nineteen “seriously injured” people were taken to the regional capital Maiduguri, while 23 others were awaiting evacuation, Saidu said in the report.

A member of a militia assisting the military in Gwoza said two of his comrades and a soldier were also killed in another attack on a security post, though authorities did not immediately confirm this toll.

Boko Haram militants seized Gwoza in 2014 when the group took over swathes of territory in northern Borno.

The town was taken back by the Nigerian military with help from Chadian forces in 2015 but the group has since continued to launch attacks from mountains near the town.

Boko Haram has carried out raids, killing men and kidnapping women who venture outside the town in search of firewood and acacia fruits.

The violence has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million in Nigeria’s northeast.

The conflict has spread to neighboring Niger, Cameroon, and Chad, prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to fight the militants.

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Speaking at the opening of two new aircraft hangars in northwestern Nigeria, Chief of the Air Staff Hassan Bala Abubakar said the country will acquire 12 AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters and a dozen more AW109 multi-purpose helicopters.

It will also place an order for 24 M-346 light fighter-trainer aircraft from Leonardo and two C-295 medium tactical transport aircraft manufactured by Airbus.

Abubakar explained that the new planes will be used to bolster military offensives against jihadist groups and armed gangs that have been terrorizing Nigeria’s northwest and central states.

Deliveries of the new aircraft are expected to begin next year.

‘Overambitious’

Nigerian defense analyst Mike Ejiofor bluntly questioned the intent of the plan, saying procuring dozens of military aircraft is “overambitious.”

He also claimed that the move is possibly misdirected as Abuja can channel the funds to the training of ground troops so they can better carry out counter-terrorism missions.

“I know it will bolster the fight against terrorism, but I believe that we should concentrate more on land than air,” he stressed. “We’re not at war!”

By appropriating money to proper priorities, Ejiofor said he believes the country can achieve more positive results.

Bolstering Counter-Terrorism Efforts

Nigeria has made large investments in bolstering its counter-terrorism capabilities, including last month when it received 20 armored personnel carriers.

The army also announced earlier this month that it will soon receive an additional fleet of tactical armored vehicles to help combat growing threats from bandits and terrorists.

The military faced public scrutiny late last year after more than 80 innocent people were killed during an airstrike in Kaduna state intended to target gangs.

Nigerian officials have since promised to operate with more precision to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

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Katsina is one of several states in northwestern and central Nigeria terrorized by heavily armed gangs, who carry out mass abductions for ransom as well as burning and looting homes.

The gangs, who maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, and Niger states, have also undertaken large-scale kidnappings of pupils from schools in recent years.

The criminals — referred to as bandits by locals — entered Gidan Boka village in Kankara district at around 2100 GMT on Sunday on motorcycles, shooting and abducting residents.

“Bandits attacked Gidan Boka village on Sunday, killing 26 people and abducting dozens of residents, mostly women and children,” Anas Isa, political administrator of Kankara district, told AFP.

“Those killed included policemen and local vigilantes who confronted the bandits,” he said late on Monday.

Isa said his office was still working to ascertain the number of people kidnapped.

Police in Katsina confirmed the attack in a statement late on Monday.

“The armed bandits attacked Gidan Boka village, killing 15 people and injuring two others,” the police statement said.

“They also ambushed our patrol team and killed four police officers… and two members of the Katsina State Community Watch Corps,” it added, referring to a self-defence militia set up by the state to help police.

The criminals also shot dead five residents of nearby Nakwabo village as they were fleeing.

In a statement from his office, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu condemned the “grisly and sinister” attacks and said more would be done to combat armed groups.

Bandits have recently stepped up attacks, particularly in Katsina and Zamfara states.

Last month, the gangs raided four villages in Katsina state’s Sabuwa district, killing 25 people, mostly local vigilantes, in apparent reprisals over military offensives on their hideouts, according to a local official.

Bandits have no ideological leaning and are motivated by financial gain. But analysts and officials have expressed concern over their increasing alliance with jihadists waging a 15-year armed rebellion in the northeast.

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