Military Operations Force Boko Haram Back to Urban Warfare
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Bomb attacks in Nigerian towns and cities look likely to increase in the run-up to forthcoming elections, despite the military claiming increasing successes against Boko Haram in captured territory.
At least 86 people were killed in explosions blamed on Boko Haram this week alone, all of them at crowded bus stations in the northeast, wider north and also in the country's central region.
The style of attack -- using either explosives left in bags or suicide bombers -- has prompted the government in Abuja to issue a warning for increased vigilance at "soft targets".
But with elections on March 28 that Boko Haram has already vowed to disrupt, security experts said there will be renewed fears about the safety of voters, particularly at polling stations.
"I think it's safe to say that as multi-national counter-insurgency operations continue in the northeast, Boko Haram will intensify its urban terror campaign," Ryan Cummings, chief Africa analyst at Red24 risk consultants, told AFP.
"Boko Haram will know that it lacks the resources or capacity to engage the Nigerian Army and its allies in conventional warfare, so its retributive attacks will increasingly focus on asymmetric warfare, which is resource-light but nevertheless damaging."
Attacking towns and cities recalls Boko Haram's previous tactics before it began capturing and seizing territory in the northeast in mid-2014, declaring some part of a caliphate.
Cities such as Kano and particularly the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, were hit regularly until the government declared a state of emergency in May 2013 in three northeast states.
The military and civilian vigilante forces managed to push the rebels out into more remote, rural areas, where violence continued and in many cases intensified.
With soldiers thin on the ground in the countryside -- and with apparent dissent in the ranks about the provision of weapons and equipment -- Boko Haram launched its unprecedented land grab.
But since the attack on Baga on January 3, where hundreds of civilians, if not more, are thought to have been killed, and rebel strikes in Chad and Niger, there has been a concerted fight-back.
Nigerian troops, aided by soldiers from Cameroon, Chad and Niger, have bombarded rebel strongholds in northeast Nigeria and claim to have recaptured territory, including Baga last weekend.
