Rapid response: New Nigerian strategy to deal with ISIS

Nigeria is facing a major challenge in its dealings with ISIS. The strategy of the state against the growing organization might not have worked well, and on the contrary, it has increased its presence.

Withdraw troops

Nigeria’s recent strategy to deal with extremism was to withdraw troops from direct combat to large bases, with the aim of concentrating troops so that they could respond quickly to major threats, but in practice, large swathes of the country were left open to combatants.

ISIS’s exploitation of empty spaces of security resistance can be seen when ISIS gunmen stormed the northeastern city of Magomari on the night of August 21, taking control freely.

Nigerian soldiers had left the city earlier that month under a new strategy of withdrawing to “large camps” that could be more easily defended against rebels the army is struggling to contain for a decade.

Residents told Western media that Islamist militants burned a clinic in Magomari without any challenge and looted government buildings and shops before returning to another town they raided on that night, called Gubbio.

The new military strategy, announced by President Muhammad Buhari in July, is designed to concentrate soldiers at large bases to provide a secure platform from which to respond quickly to threats in the region and militant camp raids.

A new tactic

There is a new tactic used by the Nigerian government to fight the West African branch in ISIS and Boko Haram to stop losses, and the government defends the new strategy, and see it achieve its objectives.

“We firmly believe that Boko Haram is moving freely and moving between fixed defensive positions is over,” Major General Olusegun Adeniye, who leads the counterinsurgency operation, told reporters last month.

Boko Haram launched a rebellion in 2009 to overthrow the government, and took control of large areas, and then split the group in 2016, and the faction, which has been a greater threat since then announced the pledge of allegiance to ISIS.

Years of war have killed more than 30,000 civilians and resulted in what the United Nations calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, which foreign countries are trying to contain with billions of dollars in aid.

Alongside terrorist operations targeting civilians, the army’s retreat makes it difficult for humanitarian and UN aid to reach the affected areas.

UN sources say soldiers are no longer protecting some of the main roads, preventing humanitarian workers from reaching because more of the area is under rebel control.

Continuing skirmishes

A total of 223,000 people have been displaced by the army, according to a briefing from the aid agency. Another thousand civilians may flee their cities.

“The impact will be from constant skirmishes,” said Yasmine Oberman, a South African-based terrorism expert. “Soldiers are under constant pressure to deal with the insurgency.

It is not clear how many “super camps” the army plans to set up, where they will be or how many soldiers each will keep.

The new strategy follows a series of setbacks for the army, which has failed to control the territory it has regained since 2015, and last year, militants repeatedly invaded smaller bases, sending soldiers and tens of thousands of people fleeing the big cities.