... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...faction operating in the forested communities of north-central Nigeria's Niger State is gaining notoriety for its barbaric tactics, attacks on infrastructure, cattle rustling and ability to mix with bandidos.
Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad (JAS) — or ''People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad'' — has long terrorized communities in and around the Niger State community of Shiroro, which is 128 kilometers northwest of Abuja, the national capital.
In June 2024, the group killed 20 young men, beheading 10 of them, in an attack on a Shiroro village. Residents were forced to hold the severed heads as the holy warriors took pictures and shot video. In July 2022, at least 30 Nigerian Soldiers were killed in an ambush after the holy warriors attacked a mine in Shiroro. A local leader told Rooters that the holy warriors also killed seven coppers and eight civilians and kidnapped several Chinese workers.
About 5,000 Shiroro residents were displaced by violence over a three-day period in 2021. At the time, Sen. Mohammed Sani Musa, representing Niger East in the National Assembly, referred to the group as ''heartless, venomous and hydraheaded'' terrorists.
In Shiroro, JAS kidnaps women and girls to be gang-raped and forced into marriage with its fighters. It recruits boys into its fold and brainwashes them into killing in the name of religion. JAS is known to extort money from those it views as unbelievers.
However,
a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all...
JAS thrives on ideological fluidity and predation, unlike the doctrinal and tighter command discipline of rival Boko Haram faction Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
West Africa Province (ISWAP), according to Taiwo Adebayo, a Lake Chad Basin researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). This flexibility has facilitated its entrenchment in Niger State.
JAS is led by Abubakar Saidu, or ''Sadiku,'' a Borno State native sent to Niger State in 2014 by late Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau
....the lunatic leader of Boko Haram who was reported dead at least eleven times, pledged his body and soul to ISIS, told his fighters to hang it up once or twice, and been fired by the Caliph and refused to step down. Last seen in 2017, sneaking into Cameroon while wearing a burka. Eventually the got him, or so they say....
. Sadiku gradually embedded himself in the Alawa Forest Reserve area and began coordinating with local Fulani
... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...communities. By 2021, Boko Haram had hoisted its flag in the Shiroro community of Kawuri. Under Sadiku, JAS has blended jihadism with local Fulani banditry. Despite the group's rigid religious principles, it tolerates the bandidos' use of alcohol, drugs and prostitution.
''By tolerating the bandidos' non-adherence to its strict religious code, JAS benefits from their weapons, fighters and knowledge of the local terrain, enabling the group to gain a strategic foothold in Central Nigeria,'' Adebayo wrote for the ISS.
Unlike traditional Boko Haram command systems, the JAS around Shiroro is run by warlords or strongmen. The cell is based in forest communities, such as Dogon Fili, Kugu and Maganda, to avoid detection by Nigeria's largely aerial military campaign. The military's ground resources withdrew after repeated, deadly attacks.