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Vincent Foucher Profile picture
Vincent Foucher
@VincentFoucher
West African politics maniac. Bissau-Conakry-Dakar-Banjul & all things Boko Haram. @LaboratoireLAM @pol_africaine @CrisisGroup @AfriqueXXI.
Jun 9 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
Today let’s talk about these guys. The Banki district (mantiqa) of #ISWAP. In fact, it’s mostly former fighters of #JASDJ #BokoHaram whose commander, Baana Dschongori, accepted to rally ISWAP after the death of Shekau in May 2021. Image I want to talk about the mechanisms that ISWAP has used to incorporate them, as told by two fighters who witnessed this – it’s telling of ISWAP’s thinking and capacity.
Jun 3 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
About child-soldiers in #ISWAP #BokoHaram. On recruitment, training, numbers... but also on the question of framing and on taking too long to ask the right questions... a thread... I had heard that in the early days of the 2016 split, ISWAP had removed from its military the youngest child-soldiers. In their videos, one sees only grown-up men. And I had never thought to ask further. But here is what I was told, interviewing a former ISWAP trainer...
Sep 26, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
Going over another audio from Sadiku, the little-known #JASDJ #BokoHaram leader in the Northwest of Nigeria. Supposedly recent. In typical BH fashion, he circulates an audio to answer internal rumours and criticisms... Deliberative jihad? A thread... JASDJ is not a democratic organisation, but Sadiku is somehow answerable. People talk (Scott mentions rumours as “weapons of the weak”). And so Sadiku needs to defend his legitimacy... and he does so by trying to convince… and releasing an audio
Apr 12, 2023 • 29 tweets • 5 min read
Seeing a recent edited volume on “terrorism” in Africa. Published by a decent academic publishing house (don’t ask, I won’t tell). There is a chapter on #BokoHaram. I am reading the few pages I can access on Google Books (the volume is absurdly expensive). A (sad) thread… It is such a demoralising read. Reflecting the parlous state of publications on Boko Haram and broader problems within academia. A thread…
Mar 21, 2023 • 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.
Feb 14, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
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.
Jan 26, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
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.
Jan 23, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
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.
Dec 7, 2022 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
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.
Aug 12, 2022 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
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.
Jul 25, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Jul 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Pretty fascinating thread on a "political settlement" built from below in Zamfara state. Some takeaways First of all, if I am correct, the conflict was opposing certain Fulani bandits and a Muslim farming community from another ethnic group... Highlighting this for those who seem to only notice Muslim on Christian violence...
Jul 16, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Hearing about #JASDJ #BokoHaram used to designate not only Islamic courts to implement sharia law, but also a level down, mediators who would try to resolve local conflicts before they were taken to the courts... As @AdamBaczko and others have shown, part of the edge that territorialised jihadi organisations can have is their capacity to provide cheap and relatively efficient and credible governance.
Jul 15, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Hearing of a spectular hike in #Iswap's taxation of fish on parts of Lake Chad. Used to be 3,000 nairas for a carton with a market value of 90,000. Now 30,000. And the market war goes on. Recent military ops against a fish market near the Lake. Goods destroyed. Some civilians killed. But of course, the business has resumed. Civilians cant do without.
Jun 28, 2022 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
Thanks to @YGuichaoua, I am reading a thoughtful old-ish piece by @hxhassan on the deglobalisation of jihad… Some thoughts and comments, with special reference to sub-Saharan Africa… newlinesmag.com/argument/what-… Hassan argues Global War on Terror has been good at one thing: making it clear that global jihad was a losing game. And so the Taliban & Jabhat al Nosra have veered away from global jihad. They have refocused on local goals & fights. They have abstained from targeting the West.
Jun 26, 2022 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Sur la question de la Casamance et de l'écriture de l'histoire officielle au Sénégal, un exemple intéressant, par un historien dont les sympathies sont évidentes... senego.com/burok-ziguinch… Nota bene: le papier reproche à Ousmane Sonko de promouvoir une histoire sénégalaise plutôt que casamançaise... De fait, Sonko est dans un rapport compliqué et prudent à la question casamançaise.
Jun 17, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Curious how the IS call for hijra to Africa, notably Nigeria, & the comparison they draw to the caliphate's rise in Iraq & Syria will be analysed by academics who think Africa is a minor issue for global jihad, a purely opportunistic front, with no solid evidence of links. Nigeria has been a testing ground for the IS, and they have tried to replicate the model with other franchises further south. They don't run things centrally, & it has not always worked as they wanted, & the local history of the jihadi organisation has been a MAJOR variable.
May 24, 2022 • 29 tweets • 6 min read
#Guinea Defence Minister Aboubacar Sidiki Camara ("Idi Amin") is announcing pretty significant reforms in the country's force. It's important, because the military is a key player in Guinean politics. A thread... President Condé was removed by a coup in last September and the country is led by a military junta under Colonel Doumbouya, the #CNRD.
May 13, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
This figure is astounding. And the problem is particularly acute in the north. What an indictment of the Nigerian elites… Has anything been learned from the #BokoHaram experience? It’s in the very name of Boko Haram, ffs. “Western education is forbidden”. Even if that name is a derisive designation by critics, it is true that the movement has criticised state-style education, and has brutally targeted it. It’s not just the Chibok girls: remember the massacre of schoolboys, the destruction of schools!
May 12, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Seeing new #JASDJ #BokoHaram videos doing the rounds… Different groups of fighters in different settings, talking in different languages (Arabic, Buduma, Kanuri, Kanembu and Arabic). Clearly, we are near the Lake. A thread. Image In these videos (complete with antics à la Shekau), they affirm their loyalty to their imam, Abu Umaymah (mentioned in a prior video as replacement for Sahalaba, recently executed by JASDJ). It's not a pledge, though. It's about rejecting unambiguously any agreement with #ISWAP. Image
Feb 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Hearing of a recent case of "collateral damages" near Baga, in northern Borno. Herders were reportedly bombed by the Nigerian Air Force, killing several of them as well as many heads of cattle. Was it a deliberate move, given the fact that the herders in all likelihood pay a tax to #ISWAP in order to be able to access grazing land there (the Nigerian military has been hitting at ISWAP's war economy of late)? Or was it a mistake?