DAKKAR: The global outrage sparked by the 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in Nigeria inspired Boko Haram to start strapping suicide bombs to women in a bid to gain notoriety through “shock and awe” tactics, researchers said.
The militants have used more women and girls in bombing attacks than any other insurgency in history — 244 since 2014 — according to a report by researchers at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, a leading US military academy.
Boko Haram is also the first militant group to use more female than male bombers, with women accounting for at least 56 percent of 434 suicide attacks carried out during its campaign in northeast Nigeria.
Women and girls are deployed as bombers by Boko Haram — many are forced to do so but some blow themselves up willingly — as they arouse less suspicion and are seen by the militants as more expendable than men, said the “Exploding Stereotypes” report.
But the fact Boko Haram only started using female bombers in 2014 — after the Chibok kidnappings — suggests the group adopted the tactic to grab headlines by “eliciting shock and awe from the local and international community,” the report authors said.
“Through the global response to the Chibok abductions, the insurgency learned the potent symbolic value of young female bodies ... that using them as bombers would attract attention and spread pervasive insecurity,” said co-author Hilary Matfess.
“I think the media attention and international campaign around the girls motivated Boko Haram ... to enact atrocities on women as a means of building its brand,” Matfess told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Thousands of women and girls have been kidnapped by Boko Haram, with many being used as cooks, sex slaves and suicide bombers, and others being deployed as fighters, activists say.
The kidnapping of the Chibok girls in April 2014 remains the group’s most high-profile attack — provoking an international outcry and a viral celebrity-backed campaign on social media with the hashtag “bringbackourgirls.”
The militants have killed more than 20,000 people and forced 2.7 million to flee their homes across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and show no signs of slowing down despite assertions by the army and state that they are on the verge of defeat.
“One thing that has remained constant about Boko Haram is its relentless innovation — it is a remarkably flexible group,” Matfess said. “Expect them to continue to innovate in their suicide bombings tactics, to cause ever more shock and fear.”
Chibok abduction outrage inspired Boko Haram to deploy female suicide bombers
Chibok abduction outrage inspired Boko Haram to deploy female suicide bombers
Trump insists he struck Iran on his own terms
- “We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X.
- Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway”
WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump and his team scrambled Tuesday to reclaim the narrative on why he decided to attack Iran, after his top diplomat suggested the US struck only after learning of an imminent Israeli strike.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio alarmed Democrats — who say only Congress can declare war — as well as many of Trump’s MAGA supporters on Monday when he said: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.
Administration officials quickly backpedalled, insisting Trump authorized the strikes because Tehran was not seriously negotiating an accord on limiting its nuclear ambitions, and the United States needed to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Tuesday on X.
At an Oval Office meeting later with Germany’s chancellor, Trump went further, saying that “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they (Iran) were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
- Had to happen? -
Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway.”
“The president made a decision. The decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide... behind this ability to conduct an attack.”
Critics seized on the muddied messaging to accuse Trump of precipitating the country into a war without a clear rationale, without informing Congress — and without a clear idea of how it might end.
They noted that just two weeks ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump again in Washington to take a hard line, in their seventh meeting since Trump’s return to power last year.
Some Republican allies rallied behind the president, with Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, insisting that “No one pushes or drags Donald Trump anywhere.”
“He acts in the vital national security interest of the United States,” Cotton told the “Fox & Friends” morning show.
But as crucial US midterm elections approach that could see Republicans lose their congressional majority, Trump risks shedding supporters who had welcomed his pledge to end foreign military interventions.
“We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a top former Trump ally and a major figure in the populist and isolationist hard right, posted on X.
