May 13, 2015
May 12, 2015
Robyn Dixon interviewed Yan St-Pierre for the Chicago Tribune. The article “Nigeria’s push into Boko Haram’s forest stronghold fraught with risk” lays out the Nigerian army’s difficulties in defeating Boko Haram:
An expert on Boko Haram, Yan St-Pierre of the Berlin-based security analysis group MOSECON, said Nigeria’s military had announced its planned attack on the forest 10 days in advance. That gave Boko Haram the chance to spirit away its leader, Abubakar Shekau, other key figures and hostages, he said. (…) “They have returned to classic guerrilla tactics; they have spread their forces out. If you are going to bomb the whole area, you need very precise, surgical attacks,” St-Pierre said.
(…)
St-Pierre said support and funding from Islamic State could help Boko Haram set up cells in neighboring countries, after other small militant cells in the region have tilted toward Islamic State. He said there were several Islamic State-linked figures in the region, providing logistical and financial support to Boko Haram and other cells. “The north-south axis to Libya is basically an open highway right now. It’s one of the main supply routes. It allows [Islamic State] to supply Boko Haram,” St-Pierre said.
To read the full article, please refer to the link above.
1 response
[…] resulting in more stable “bases”, most notorious of which were its compound in Gwoza and its strongholds in the Sambisa forest. Second, and most important was that they disturbed Boko Haram activities in the east, affecting […]