[PEOPLESDISPATCH.ORG] Amid a series of attacks in Nigeria's northeastern border state of Borno, its governor, Babagana Zulum, sounded an alarm that only one of the over 300 towns and villages in its Marte Local Government Area (LGA) remains under government control.
Several other of the 27 LGAs of the state have also been attacked this year, especially since March. The attackers? A resurgent Boko Haram and its splinter, the 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 Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
of West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Past midnight on May 23, Boko Haram button men were intercepted by the army while trying to infiltrate a brigade's headquarters in the Damboa LGA. In the two-hour-long battle that ensued, two soldiers and 16 forces of Evil were reportedly killed before the latter retreated.
The night before, around 10:30 pm on May 22, the army killed five more murderous Moslems while repelling an attack on a military base in Gajibo village of the Dikwa LGA. The button men also opened fire on civilians in the village, killing at least nine and injuring many more.
Dozens more civilians were executed last week in the Kukawa LGA, where a Boko Haram faction's button men reportedly rounded up over a hundred residents, mostly bean farmers and fishermen, in the village of Malam Karanti and its neighboring Kwatandashi on May 15. They were marched into a bush where 57 bodies, most of them with slit throats, were recovered two days later.
RIVALRY AND COOPERATION BETWEEN BOKO HARAM AND ISWAP
Local media reports and eyewitness accounts that Boko Haram attacked these villagers for paying protection money to its rival ISWAP highlight that civilians remain the victims even when the conflict is within the Jihadist movement.
ISWAP was formed in 2016 and affiliated itself with the Islamic State after it broke away from Boko Haram which formed in 2002. In 2009, Boko Haram unleashed a terror campaign, which continues till today, killing 36,000 people and displacing another 2.2 million. Clashes between these two rivals have also been reported. Nevertheless, the Nigerian government is losing ground again to the Jihadists, even as they fight each other.
Their rivalry and collaboration appear to be separated by a thin and often blurred line. Nigerian media attributes several attacks to ''Boko Haram/ISWAP'', including the attack on Gajibo on May 22 and the earlier coordinated raids between May 12 and 13 on the two military bases — one in Rann in Kala Balge LGA, and another in Gajiram in the Nganzai LGA.
Vanguard reported that five soldiers were killed and six others were maimed in Rann, while the army was able to repel the attack in Gajiram — both of which have come under repeated attacks this year.
Earlier on May 12, button men had also struck another military base in Marte town in Marte LGA on the border with Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
, killing seven soldiers and dislodging others before stealing weapons. After the base was briefly overrun, 20,000 people fled the town to take refuge in an Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in Dikwa LGA's town.
''This huge number is a threat as allowing them to stay in the camp may'' leave ''the younger ones— vulnerable to recruitment by the murderous Moslems,'' Governor Zulum warned.
Reassured by his visit to the town with security forces in the aftermath of this attack, many of the residents have returned, and are now ''resettled for the second time,'' he said in a presser on May 18. They were first resettled here about four years ago when the army retook control over this area from the forces of Evil under the previous administration.
However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried...
with Nigeria's economy shrinking under the deepening neoliberal austerity measures by the current administration, the security forces are increasingly ill-equipped and underfunded. They have been ceding ground once again to a resurgent Boko Haram, which is reportedly deploying drones of the sort used by Israel and Ukraine.
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... 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...
