Using this dataset, we build an algorithm to detect the fragmentation of Boko Haram into multiple cells, assuming that travel costs and reduced familiarity with unknown locations limit the mobility of individual cells. Our results suggest that the terrorist group has a very high level of fragmentation and consists of at least 50—60 separate cells.
Our methodology enables us to detect periods of time during which Boko Haram exhibits exceptionally high levels of fragmentation, and identify a number of key routes frequently travelled by separate cells of Boko Haram where military interventions could be concentrated. Boko Haram is one of the deadliest armed organisations in recent history. Since the Jihadist group became violent in , it has caused nearly 40, casualties and displaced 2. Boko Haram has adopted a strategy of violence against Sufi and Salafi religious movements, traditional leaders, the wider civilian population, and the Nigerian state, which the organisation regards as corrupted and illegitimate Matfess Its goal is to overthrow secular governments, cut their ties with the West and destroy the social and political order of the Lake Chad region.
Over the years, Boko Haram has been torn apart by internal rivalries that have their origins in the balance of power between the various leaders and factions that compose the main organisation Zenn Yet, due to the secretive nature of Boko Haram, the internal structure of the organisation remains largely unknown.
Of particular importance is whether Boko Haram is a centralised organisation structured around a few key leaders or a network of decentralised cells Anugwom Centralised organisations in which decisions and resources flow from the top down are theoretically more efficient than decentralised ones but also less resilient to counter-terrorism measures Cunningham et al.
Decentralised organisations in which individual cells are relatively independent from the core are more difficult to dismantle but also much more challenging to coordinate than centralised ones Everton ; Price The issue of whether Boko Haram fighters tend to operate locally or travel extensively between their historical bases in northern Nigeria and their new sanctuaries in neighbouring countries also remains under-explored. Terrorist organisations capable of coordinating attacks over long distance are a much greater threat to African states and the international community that local organisations whose attacks are isolated in one particular region Walther et al.
We develop an algorithm to detect the fragmentation of Boko Haram into several cells, assuming that travel costs and reduced familiarity with unknown locations limit the mobility of the organisation. Shedding light on both the social structure and spatial organisation of Boko Haram, our analysis suggests that Boko Haram has a very high level of fragmentation and consists of at least 50—60 separate active cells.
The method also identifies a number of key routes frequently travelled by separate Boko Haram cells, including international border crossings, where military interventions could be concentrated.
Network analysis can yield powerful insights into the latent structure of spatial and temporal data, as it is often the case with violent events Yuan et al. One of the main challenges of network-based studies of crime and terrorism is usually data incompleteness, dynamic behaviour Gera et al. The analysis of social networks has expanded to study organised crime networks, drug production Malm et al. Social networks have also been used to model the diffusion of fear of crime as a reaction to direct and indirect victimisation Prieto Curiel and Bishop , providing a potential explanation as to why fear of crime can increase even if crime rates are being reduced Prieto Curiel and Bishop Networks are also increasingly used to visualise, model and counter terrorist organisations Bakker et al.
The study of terrorist social networks usually looks at the network topology and identifies which actors are the most central Everton Extant literature shows that terrorist organisations tend to find a balance between efficiency and security Gerdes ; Morselli et al. Beyond the social dimension of terrorism, space is now recognised as a fundamental dimension of both criminal and terrorist networks Radil ; Bahgat and Medina ; Medina and Hepner Space provides the physical framework upon which crime and terrorist attacks are conducted.
It shapes the strategies of covert organisations by acting as a facilitating or constraining factor in their fight against government forces or civilian populations.
Geographical distance plays a critical role, as attacks are frequently executed near important areas or the city centre Savitch Therefore, a frequent approach in terrorism studies is to detect spatially dependent events and self-reinforcing hotspots Bahgat and Medina This approach focuses on how different events are linked or how spatial proximity can influence the formation of social networks Skillicorn et al.
Another approach is to use exponential random graph models to explore the spatial and social network causes of violence. In Africa, recent research using exponential random graph models suggests that rebel groups whose turfs overlap are more likely to fight each other Cunningham and Everton Space can also enable criminal and terrorist organisation to spread geographically by using border regions as sanctuaries Arsenault and Bacon , as in the Lake Chad region today Walther et al.
Additional variables can be added to shed light on the social and spatial dynamics of terrorist networks, including ideology, tactics, weapons, targets and active regions Gera et al. A recent analysis of the terrorist attacks which occurred from to around the world shows, for instance, that groups with opposite ideologies can share very common behaviours Campedelli et al.
In recent years, particular emphasis has been given to radical Islamist organisations, whose structure has been found to be resilient even if important social nodes were removed Medina In West Africa, network studies have shown that Islamist organisations were capable of travelling long distances Skillicorn et al.
The organisation has used several different names since the Nigerian police killed Yusuf in Maiduguri in July There is little agreement as to the organisational structure of Boko Haram.
While not particularly effective in winning battles and holding territories, this centralised leadership was instrumental in limiting the number of splinter groups, with the exception of the short-lived group Ansar al-Muslimin fi Bilad al-Sudan, better known as Ansaru, founded in and largely dormant since Zenn and Pieri This structure, in which individual cells maintain little direct contact with the central leadership, allows local and regional commanders to enjoy a significant level of autonomy in their operations against governmental and civilian targets.
The number of decentralised cells that composes Boko Haram, however, remains a matter of speculation. Boko Haram is known for its high mobility. Since it became violent in , the organisation has been able to conduct an average of two attacks each day, taking on average the lives of nearly 11 people daily.
The Boko Haram insurgency, which initially focused on cities, has mainly been active in rural areas since , where it relies on cheap Chinese motorcycles to conduct its attacks Agbiboa The move to rural areas has allowed Boko Haram to challenge the Nigerian military and to exploit agricultural and natural resources around Lake Chad.
While Boko Haram had focused its attacks on northeastern Nigeria until , increasing pressure from government forces and vigilante groups has led the terrorist organisation to conduct an increasing number of attacks in neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger.
The mobility patterns that sustain these attacks remain largely under-reported. Thus far, the debate on the organisational structure and mobility of Boko Haram primarily relies on qualitative data collected through interviews with former members of the Jihadist organisation, evaluation of tactics, court transcript, letters written between Boko Haram commanders and other extremist organisations, and propaganda videos Kassim and Nwankpa Studies using quantitative approaches to detect and describe the social networks and spatial patterns of Boko Haram have mainly focused on relationships between the organisation and its enemies rather than on its internal dynamics Walther et al.
An exponential random graph model approach has shown that the emergence of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria led to an increase in the number of conflicts, even between pairs of actors that did not include Boko Haram Dorff et al. Finally, some attempts have been made to create a multi-layer network of Boko Haram based on open-source data that includes shared events, collaborations, membership and financial ties Cunningham That network is extremely sparse due to its relatively young cell-like structure and its lack of collective leadership Gera et al.
Due to the secretive nature of terrorist groups, the internal structure of Boko Haram and whether it is a centralised organisation is still unknown. Whether Boko Haram cells tend to operate locally or have a high degree of mobility also remains under-explored.
And, in that vein, paths which are frequently travelled by Boko Haram members and whether international borders work as frictions to the group or as safety structures is still an open question with potential policy implications. The method used in our paper to understand the internal structure of Boko Haram differs from existing approaches. Building on a comprehensive dataset that includes all violent events in northern Nigeria and the neighbouring countries since , we provide an estimate of the fragmentation of Boko Haram based on an agent-based model that identifies cells which move between Boko Haram events Epstein ; Moon and Carley ; Park et al.
Our approach requires two input parameters the maximum cell speed and distance between events , whose impact on the results of the model e.
To analyse the mobility of Boko Haram cells, the locations of events are clustered and a spatial undirected weighted network is constructed based on those clusters, which captures how violent events are spatially linked and how cells move between different locations.
To date, ACLED has recorded approximately half a million individual events and contains information about all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, mainly from local and regional media, reports from NGOs and social media accounts. Reports are separated into individual events that took place in different locations, have different types of violence, and involve different actors.
For each event, the dataset records the date, actors, types of violence, locations, fatalities, and it also includes a space and time precision estimate. All events in which Boko Haram was involved as an actor or associate actor were selected from the ACLED dataset including all Boko Haram factions, which in total gives events.
Because our goal is to analyse the most recent mobility patterns of Boko Haram, a small number of isolated events involving Boko Haram before May 21st, were excluded from the analysis. This is the only filter applied to the events, and it removes Two major events were dismissed, however: the July uprising of Boko Haram in Maiduguri against the police and military which resulted in casualties, and the suicide attacks that took place in Kano in January , which resulted in casualties.
Other events during the omitted period were less violent and resulted in fewer casualties. The road infrastructure around the Lake and in northern Nigeria is in very poor condition, which results in limited, slow or costly mobility. It is roughly the same linear distance as between Lagos and Benin City, two Nigerian cities that can be travelled in 5.
Some authors have argued that Boko Haram intensifies its attacks in rural areas during the rainy season June—September , a period during which the mobility of government forces is limited by water-logged roads Agbiboa ACLED data does not confirm this assumption.
The highest number of events is recorded in January with nearly two events each day of the month since and the highest number of casualties is recorded in February with Since this is highly unrealistic and improbable, we assume that Boko Haram is fragmented into an unknown number of cells responsible for the observed patterns of attacks in the region.
Our model algorithm for constructing different Boko Haram cells is based on the principle of least action which assumes that the mobility of Boko Haram is constrained by environmental distance, lack of roads and security factors presence of government forces that reduce familiarity with unknown locations and limit the impact of its attacks. Boko Haram events are analysed in sequential order in a manner similar to that used previously to detect crime pattern motifs Davies et al. Specifically, the algorithm assesses each event, assuming that cells move as little as needed.
The first event is assigned a cell. The location and the date of the event is considered to be the last known location of that cell. For each subsequent event:. The location and time of the cell is updated. If the event could have been conducted by multiple cells, then one is selected at random. However, if the event takes place either too far away or too soon after the last event from the set of existing cells , then we assume that the event was conducted by a different cell. Hence, a new cell is created.
This approach thus also uses the principle of least group size Thelen , which assumes that if Boko Haram had more cells, it would be capable of committing more attacks and with a higher frequency than is observed. Figure 1 illustrates the cell assignment process outlined above.
Schematic representation of the methodology. Events are analysed in sequential order and a unique Boko Haram cell is assigned to each one. For each event, the algorithm decides if an existing cell is involved in the attack or if a new or not previously identified cell is responsible.
In the figure, an event took place during the first day, which means that a cell is created. The location of that event is its last known location and the date of the event is its last known date. The potential location of that cell increases each day according to its daily speed,. Then, during days 2 and 4, there is no cell nearby who could have been involved in the new events and so new cells are identified.
During day 4, there is an event for which an existing cell is potentially responsible, so its last known location and date are updated. We therefore assume that a cell which has not been active for 1 year has dissolved and is no longer responsible for any future events. In the example of Fig. Although it would be possible to observe the mobility of cells by looking directly at the location of their corresponding events, the spatial grouping of locations into n clusters enables us to consolidate very short-distance movements.
Event locations were clustered into nodes using Partitioning Around Medoids Reynolds et al. Each event is assigned to its corresponding medoid. The medoids or the nodes of the network are located such that We examine specific parts of the parameter space.
The results of our mobility pattern analysis suggest that Boko Haram is a highly fragmented terrorist organisation. The estimate of the number of cells depends on whether we believe that Boko Haram is rather mobile or not: highly mobile cells are capable of committing more attacks than immobile ones. If a high mobility scenario is selected, then there are at least 40 active cells in Fig.
If a low mobility scenario is selected, then Boko Haram should have at least active cells. An analysis of the total number of cells and the ratio between active and total cells in the parameter space is in the Supplementary materials 5. Measuring the mobility of Boko Haram cells, estimating their daily speed and the maximum distance between events is almost impossible due to the risks of doing fieldwork in the region.
Although mobility studies have rapidly evolved due to the development of new techniques and the use of new sources of data, such as mobile phone data Wilson et al. Due to the lack of an alternative validation exercise, we analyse whether some of the cells are more violent than others, or more specialised on certain types of events, as might be expected.
Nine people are reported to have died after Nigerian air force jets fired on a village in Yobe State whilst targeting Boko Haram militants in the area.
The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan has taken the world by surprise. In Africa, it compounds the worry and fear in countries struggling to crush Islamist insurgencies.
The government of Niger is encouraging thousands of people who have been in exile for years to return home. An estimated , people have been forced to flee due to attacks by Boko Haram and criminals in Diffa, in southeastern Niger.
In northern Nigeria, young people are at risk of violence amid an increase in kidnappings and clashes between government forces and Islamists groups. Education has been interrupted, and some youths are being recruited to fight.
On this week's 77Percent, hosted by Zaharadeen Umar in Kaduna, we discuss this topic. And in Kenya, a special police squad has been formed to deal with abduction cases. The US-made aircraft were formally sold under the Trump administration in Nigeria wants the 12 attack planes to battle an Islamist insurgency; militants downed one of its jets this week.
Good governance and an active civil society spare Ghana from the militia attacks that the neighboring countries are faced with. According to experts, democratic processes are well in place in the West African country. After the so-called "Islamic State" saw its influence wane in the Middle East, the group and its affiliates targeted poorly governed areas in Africa.
But just how big is the threat across the continent? Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram - which has caused havoc in Africa's most populous country through a wave of bombings, assassinations and abductions - is fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state. Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society.
This includes voting in elections, wearing shirts and trousers or receiving a secular education. Boko Haram regards the Nigerian state as being run by non-believers, regardless of whether the president is Muslim or not - and it has extended its military campaign by targeting neighbouring states.
But residents in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, where the group had its headquarters, dubbed it Boko Haram. Loosely translated from the region's Hausa language, this means "Western education is forbidden".
Boko originally meant fake but came to signify Western education, while haram means forbidden. Islamic State strengthens ties with Boko Haram. Is Islamic State shaping Boko Haram media? Jihadist groups around the world. What is jihadism? Since the Sokoto caliphate, which ruled parts of what is now northern Nigeria, Niger and southern Cameroon, fell under British control in , there has been resistance among some of the area's Muslims to Western education.
Many still refuse to send their children to government-run "Western schools", a problem compounded by the ruling elite which does not see education as a priority. He set up a religious complex, which included a mosque and an Islamic school. Many poor Muslim families from across Nigeria, as well as neighbouring countries, enrolled their children at the school. But Boko Haram was not only interested in education. Its political goal was to create an Islamic state, and the school became a recruiting ground for jihadis.
In , Boko Haram carried out a spate of attacks on police stations and other government buildings in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state. This led to shoot-outs on Maiduguri's streets. Hundreds of Boko Haram supporters were killed and thousands of residents fled the city. Nigeria's security forces eventually seized the group's headquarters, capturing its fighters and killing Mr Yusuf. His body was shown on state television and the security forces declared Boko Haram finished.
But its fighters regrouped under a new leader, Abubakar Shekau, and stepped up their insurgency.
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