By Ahmed Kingimi
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigeria’s Islamist group Boko Haram has renewed attacks and kidnappings in northeastern Borno state with little push back from security forces, suggesting that authorities in the region were losing ground to insurgents, the state’s governor has said.
Militants from Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province have mainly operated in the northeast of Nigeria, attacking security forces and civilians and killing and displacing tens of thousands of people.
In the last few years, Nigeria’s military had managed to push back against Boko Haram while internal fights with ISWAP further weakened the group.
Borno state governor Babagana Zulum said Boko Haram had recently upped attacks, dislodging some military formations in several districts and killing civilians and security forces.
“It is a setback in the fragile state of Borno and the North East region,” Zulum said during a meeting with security forces in Borno state capital Maiduguri on Tuesday.
Zulum added that “the renewed Boko Haram attacks and kidnappings in many communities, almost on a daily basis without confrontation, signalled that Borno state is losing ground.”
Nigeria’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boko Haram, which is based in Borno state, has adapted its tactics over time, including the use of drones for surveillance and attacks, the military says.
Nigeria’s task in the northeast has also been made harder by Niger’s withdrawal from the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) fighting armed Islamist groups in the Lake Chad region. MNJTF includes soldiers from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon.
Zulum said Nigeria should put more effort in deploying technological warfare to “stem the tide of all renewed attacks bedevilling parts of the Sahelian Borno.”
Nigeria’s military is stretched by insecurity across the country, including criminal armed gangs who kidnap for ransom as well as militants in the northwest, and deadly farmer-herder clashes in the central belt.
(Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Editing by Chijioke Ohuocha and Aidan Lewis)
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