Thread by @DefenseNigeria

Boko Haram has been defeated. Thats a FACT. ISWAP will meet the same fate. FACT. A third of ISWAP mid level commanders have been eviscerated. FACT. Four successive ISWAP leaders have been killed in the last month. FACT.

The embittered and western media press will beg to disagree, citing attacks on soft target's or a recent abduction as proof the Nigerian military is covering up its defeate. A deliberately deceptive analogy.

Lets leave all that aside. For the objective minded and pragmatist lets delve on a few of the factors/ weapon responsible for the degradation of Boko Haram/ISWAP, the surrender of 15,000 insurgents, the neutralization of four ISWAP commanders etc. All in a two month span.

The fight against insurgents has become a learning opportunity for the Nigerian military as it looks to a future taking on very adaptable and resourceful opponents. There has been a realization that mission purpose training and advanced technology, whether in precision weaponry

or highly trained fighting units can provide advantages in an era of constrained budgets.

This has been a decade long learning curve.The Nigerian military was once a sitting ducks, waiting for a very mobile and versatile enemy to strike at a weak point or another. At the same

..time the Nigerian government has been incredibly naive in trying to oursource the security of the nation. It failed to realize Nigeria has been earmarked for demolition. To be the next Libya. For example, it was recently revealed that during the Chibok

crises, U.S. intelligence officers listened to intercepted calls in languages they couldn’t translate but didn’t share, not quite trusting the Nigerian government with the information they’d found. Instead, the National Security Agency put out a highly

unusual ad looking for Americans who spoke Kanuri, a dialect spoken in Nigeria and throughout the region. Meanwhile the media was having a field day bashing the military on its inability to locate the girls in a way that only gave Boko Haram the notoriety they craved.

In fact, the simplistic media constructs, furnished Boko Haram with the materials to build its terrorism brand. The group’s videos of the girls were being broadcast and talked about on television stations globally. Boko Haram became a household name. The new kid in the block.

Giving this dynamics, Abubakar Shekau would have been incredibly stupid to negotiate for the release of the girls. It was more rewarding for the group to keep the girls captive. Same dynamics happened during the Arab Spring. The Western media is responsible for the death of

..hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians no thanks to their skewed reportage that encouraged and romanticized unrest and civil strife. Soon the Arab Spring fever spread like wild fire. People wanted to be a part of this "epic moment" in human history, and so they looked for

the slightest excuse to start their own Arab Spring, not knowing they were about to destroy their country. Libyans and Syrians watching the coverage wanted to be a part of it, they too took to the streets. Today Libya is a failed state. In Syria 700k killed, millions displaced.

With Nigeria it was terrorism. They declared Boko Haram the deadliest terrorist group in the world, further massaging Abubakar Shekau's already inflated ego. It didnt take long for him to declare a Caliphate.

By the time Nigerian soldiers pushed into the vast Sambisa forest

..the Chibok girls were already...

Against all odds Nigeria's resilience has persevered were others failed. It has been able to independently contain and localize the insurgency while others failed.

How did the Nigerian military pull this off?

SPECIAL FORCES. The use of special forces and intelligence assets have been a meaningful element of Nigeria's war fighting strategy. The army was initially trying to overwelm a highly nimble enemy with mass, when it could use their own tactics against them by utilizing highly

..trained units as mobile and as versatile as the insurgents. Using their own tactics against them, only this time backed by the resources of the state. Over time they became pretty good at developing new approaches to meet whatever the current tactical problem is.

South Africa's Eeben Barlow comes to mind, whose tactics of relentless pursuit with a small well trained and armed fighting unit sent Boko Haram into a state of panic and confusion.

DRONES. The most feared assets are the UAVs and the PGMs. Drones armed with laser guided precision weapons have figured prominently in air strikes, including taking out senior commanders of insurgents.

VT4 Main Battle Tank. The VT4 MBT played a major role against insurgent mechanized units during clearance operations. A pair of VT4 tanks backed troops during operations to take back Marte. They blasted away at Boko Haram/ISWAP fighting positions and vehicles

while destroying improvised explosive device emplacements.

With the degradation of insurgent offensive capabilities complete, the army was now focused on destroying ISWAP infrastructure and the targeting of their leadership..

MI-35M HIND

The NAF aircraft inventory has been significantly updated. Since their induction, the Day/Night all weather capable MI-35M helicopter gunship has been on the forefront of delivering crushing blows against insurgents.

Throw in the Super Tucanos, JF-17 multirole fighters, ST-I tank destroyers, SH-105 wheeled self propelled artillery..you get the picture.

Make no mistake, ISWAP can still put together some complex attacks, but they have not been able to take hold of and hold any key terrain. Quite frankly those days are long gone.