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Mar 21 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Some very interesting info from @SimNasr here on Shekau's 2015 allegiance to the Islamic State... #BokoHaram #JASDJ #ISWAP According a cleric who facilitated the conversation, Abou Malek, the IS had reservations and set its conditions. A thread.
This included an end to end of hostage taking of children of other communities (presumably Christians?), Shekau's replacement in PR by a spokesperson, and the centralisation of media.
I find it telling that this had a lot to do with image-control - the IS wanting to preserve its brand... and clearly not keen on Shekau's demotic style of propaganda.
What's intriguing is that the IS thought the Chibok girls kidnapping was bad PR. That's weird, given what they were doing with the Yazidi and Kurdish kids in the Levant at around the same time... Actually, if I am correct, Shekau claimed at one point he had inspired IS on this...
What's also interesting is that Shekau himself had serious reservations about the pledge, and caved in only under pressure of his internal critics and Nigeria's counter-offensive - he was trying to appease his critics and looking for help.
According to Abou Malek, the IS delivered advice for tactics and organisation - I can confirm that in the time of Shekau's ISWAP, advice was indeed given and began to be applied - this included for instance the creation of an amniyya, a secret service separate from the hisbah.
According to Abou Malek, Shekau launched purges, killing several commander and an imam, and that was a breach of the deal. The IS was not pleased with Shekau's extremism...
My own understanding from interviews with defectors is however that the 2016 split was a local initiative, validated only ex post facto by the IS - Habib and Nur left Sambisa sometimes in April 2016, they launched their first big independent attack on Bosso, Niger, in June...
IS publicised Habib's ascension to waliship in August. IS never mentioned Shekau again (while ISWAP criticised him openly on and on) - a sign that they were still hoping and pushing for some sort of reconciliation...

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More from @VincentFoucher

Vincent Foucher Profile picture
Feb 14
As #ISWAP and #JASDJ #BokoHaram fight it out, I am going through an old-ish audio by Habib Yusuf aka Abu Musab al Barnawi about the difficult reunification of jihad in Borno following the death of Shekau. New to me, but dating from early 2022 or before. A thread…
Habib explains and comments in Kanuri an audio sent by the Islamic State – in this instance Abu Hamzat al Qurayshi al Muhajir, who was the IS spokesperson until his death in February 2022. The audio mentions Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi as IS Caliph, who was also killed in Feb 2022.
So the audio dates somewhere between Shekau’s death in May 2021 and February 2022.
Read 12 tweets
Vincent Foucher Profile picture
Jan 26
Great piece by the brilliant @JCourtright08 on how the jihadi threat connects (or not) to local inter-religious conflicts in northern Ghana newlinesmag.com/reportage/a-sm…
This area looks like the jihadi could find a way in. Just like they did in the Gwoza hills, where they used pre-existing tensions within communities (and indeed, sometimes within families) over religion.
There is, of course, a dramatic self-fulfilling dimension to this, as James notes: obsession with jihad by the police and others can create incidents that will then create opportunities for the jihadi...
Read 6 tweets
Vincent Foucher Profile picture
Jan 23
Some more news about the #Bakura faction and its malcontents... Following the killing of Sahalaba by Bakura, a group of #JASDJ #BokoHaram went their own way... a mini-thread...
So it really was the case that Bakura had a beef with Sahalaba, who had taken over as imam of JASDJ after Shekau's death in May 2021. Sahalaba was a well established religious scholar, who used to be a qadi. His religious legitimacy was key to his ascension to the imamate.
But Bakura, who used to be the top military commander (amir ul fiya) of pro-Shekau jihadis on Lake Chad , was not happy to be supplanted as top dog because of his insufficient religious knowledge.
Read 8 tweets
Vincent Foucher Profile picture
Dec 7, 2022
A devastating report by @Reuters about a mass programme of forced abortion ran by the Nigerian military in the struggle against #BokoHaram reuters.com/investigates/s…. A thread...
The report is amply sourced (a remarkable job by Reuters, given the sensitivity of the topic). And it is convincing. And things we know otherwise add to the plausibility.
As is clear in the extracts from several military and civilians involved in the programme, there was a combination of worry and suspicion about the children being born from women who had an association, voluntary or else, with Boko Haram.
Read 23 tweets
Vincent Foucher Profile picture
Aug 12, 2022
Some notes about #ISWAP, #JASDJ #BokoHaram. Mamman Nur & Habib Yusuf broke away from Abubakar Shekau in 2016 with a strong reform agenda. I think it can be summed up as a rationalisation / bureaucratisation of jihad. Just one example of this: penal reform. A thread...
Shekau was famous for the spectacular violence he visited upon people he deemed criminals (adulterers, thieves, drugs dealers and users). Executions, chopping hands and feet, brutal flogging… He and his men made shows of this, for the education of the masses.
There, we are squarely in the realm of the spectacle of extreme violence: brutal, but intermittent. The ruthless affirmation of sovereignty and quest for purity.
Read 17 tweets
Vincent Foucher Profile picture
Jul 25, 2022
I want to add to the praise showered upon @ankaboy for his @BBC documentary on banditry in the NW of #Nigeria. And maybe I can do it by highlighting the takeaways.... a thread.
It is a topic whose coverage is in inverse relation to its importance, because it is a dangerous place to report about... & also because the conversation is filled with all sorts of communal biases and political sensitivities.
Anka does a remarkable job to give a fair, balanced account. To those who are obsessed by the supposed grand battle between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, he documents how Muslim-on-Muslim violence is massive.
Read 14 tweets

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