Understanding the Terrorist Threat in Africa and the Limitations of the Current Counter-Terrorist Paradigm

Abstract

For the young schoolgirls of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, 11 April 2014 was to be no ordinary day. As the girls aged between 16 and 18 years sat for their physics paper at the local school, militants from the Islamist sect Boko Haram stormed the school and abducted more than 230 young girls. They were taken to one of Boko Haram’s hideouts in the sprawling 60,000 square kilometre Sambisa forest.1 Various attempts to rescue the girls ended in failure, while subsequent reports indicated that at least some of the girls had been taken to Boko Haram’s other camps in Cameroon.2