11
Boko Haram: A chronology
p. 237-245
Texte intégral
11995: Creation of the Sahaba group (“The Prophet’s Companions”), under the leadership of Mallam Abubakar Lawal. Mohammed Yusuf, born in 1970 in Yobe State, is thought to be among the followers.
22000-2003: In Borno State, rivalry increases between Governor Mala Kashalla and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. The latter, running for governor, criticises the flawed implementation of Shariah in the state and rallies a group of political thugs. Many of the recruits are students of imam Mohammed Yusuf. Subsequently, Sheriff and Yusuf strengthen ties.
32002: Mohammed Yusuf, who has been expelled from two mosques in Maiduguri because of fundamentalist preaching, becomes the head of the Sahaba. Yusuf detaches himself from his mentor Ja'afar Mahmud Adam, an influential Salafi cleric from Kano, because of doctrinal disagreements. He gradually removes the older Sahaba clerics and radicalises the group’s ideology, giving birth to the organisation later known as Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad (“People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”) or, more commonly, Boko Haram.
4April 2003: Ali Modu Sheriff is elected Governor of Borno. An intimate of Mohammed Yusuf, Alhaji Buji Foi, is nominated Commissioner for Religious Affairs. Yusuf is permitted to develop a compound with a mosque and a Quranic school in Maiduguri.
52003: In mid-2003, a group of 200 young men, composed of Mohammed Yusuf’s students for the most part, decides to break away from the secular state and found a religious community in the Yobe countryside, calling themselves Al Sunna Wal Jamma (“Followers of the Prophet’s Teaching”). Following conflicts with local communities and authorities, the congregation relocates to Kanama, near the border with Niger. From 23 to 31 December 2003, the group launches a series of deadly attacks on police stations and government buildings in Kanama and four other cities of the North. Military troops are deployed to contain the insurrection and they kill several militants. A majority of the surviving members returns to Maiduguri, where they reintegrate into Mohammed Yusuf’s community. Yusuf is blamed by the authorities and has to leave Nigeria; after a long stay in Saudi Arabia, he is eventually permitted to return.
6June 2004: Four members of Boko Haram are killed by prison guards in a foiled jail break in Yobe State capital, Damaturu.
723 September 2004: Suspected Boko Haram members launch a militia attack on police stations in the towns of Gwoza and Bama in Borno State, killing several policemen and civilians. They move to the Mandara Mountains along the Nigeria-Cameroon border. Soldiers are deployed and kill an estimated 27 sect members.
810 October 2004: An affiliate group of Boko Haram attacks a police convoy in Kala-Balge near the Chadian border. The militants kidnap 12 policemen and all attempts to trace them fail.
92005-2007: Boko Haram focuses on recruiting new members and shoring up its resources. Little is known about Boko Haram’s activities during this period of time. Yusuf is arrested on numerous occasions, but seems to be protected by some powerful men as he is systematically released and permitted to return to his stronghold in Maiduguri.
10April 2007: The doctrinal conflict between Mohammed Yusuf and Ja’afar Mahmud Adam reaches a peak when the latter is murdered in his mosque in Kano. This event is seen as a violent resurgence of Boko Haram after three years of apparent inactivity.
1111-12 June 2009: Following the shooting of 14 of his followers in a joint military and police operation in Borno State, Mohammed Yusuf threatens the federal state with reprisals, in a video addressed to the president. The incident follows a disagreement over Boko Haram members’ alleged refusal to wear crash helmets during a funeral procession to bury some of its members.
1226-31 July 2009: Boko Haram launches a short-lived uprising in Borno, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Kano, and Katsina, which is quelled by a military crackdown that allegedly leaves more than 800 dead – mostly sect members and civilians. The mosque in Maiduguri used as the sect’s headquarters and Yusuf’s compound are destroyed. Approximately forty Christians are executed by members of the sect and twenty churches are burnt down. Hundreds of Boko Haram members are arrested, including Mohammed Yusuf. Handed over to the police by the army who arrested and interrogated him, Yusuf is summarily executed while in custody on 30 July. Alhaji Buji Foi, the former Commissioner of Religious Affairs and a financier of Boko Haram, is also captured and later killed at the police headquarters in Maiduguri.
13June 2010: Abubakar Shekau, Yusuf’s second-in-command, announces in a video that he has taken over as leader of the sect. Authorities had announced his death after the crackdown on the sect in Maiduguri in July 2009.
147 September 2010: Boko Haram raids a prison in the city of Bauchi, freeing more than 700 prisoners – including at least 100 members of the sect. This attack will be followed by many others on prison facilities in northern Nigeria.
1524 December 2010: Approximately ninety people are killed during attacks in Jos and Maiduguri. A series of explosions claimed by Boko Haram in nine Christian neighbourhoods of Jos result in the death of 32 people, while immediate reprisals kill about fifty. The same day, Boko Haram members open fire on two churches in Maiduguri, killing six. The bomb blasts in Jos spark a month of sectarian violence, claiming more than 200 victims among Christians and Muslims alike.
1629 December 2010: Suspected Boko Haram gunmen shoot dead eight people in Maiduguri, including the governorship candidate of the ruling All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Borno State.
178 April 2011: Goodluck Jonathan is declared winner of the presidential elections with 59 per cent of the votes. This announcement sparks a series of post-electoral violence in parts of northern Nigeria.
1829 May 2011: Three bombs rip through a beer garden situated inside military barracks in the northern city of Bauchi, killing 13 and wounding 33. Boko Haram claims responsibility. (More than 25 beer gardens and markets associated with barracks have been targeted by Boko Haram militants since 2009.)
196 June 2011: Muslim cleric Ibrahim Birkuti, an outspoken critic of Boko Haram, is shot dead by two motorcycle-riding gunmen outside his house in Biu, 200 km from Maiduguri. (More than twenty Muslim clerics opposed to the sect were assassinated between 2009 and the end of 2012.)
207 June 2011: Alleged attacks by the sect on a church and two police posts in Maiduguri leave at least 14 people dead.
2116 June 2011: A Boko Haram suspect detonates a car bomb in the car park of the police headquarters in Abuja, leaving at least two people dead in the first reported suicide bombing in Nigeria.
2220 June 2011: Seven people, including five policemen, are killed in a gun and bomb attack on a police station and a bank in Kankara, Katsina State. Multiple attacks on banks have been attributed to Boko Haram, which allegedly serve to refinance the sect.
2327 June 2011: Boko Haram’s gun and bomb attack on a beer garden in Maiduguri leaves at least 25 dead and dozens injured.
24July 2011: The government announces that it will set up a panel of experts to initiate negotiations with the sect. Five police officers held responsible for Mohammed Yusuf’s murder are charged by a federal high court in Abuja.
253 August 2011: Government says it rejects negotiations with Boko Haram.
2625 August 2011: The sect storms two banks and two police stations in Gombi, killing at least 16 people. This is the first reported attack in Adamawa State.
2726 August 2011: A Boko Haram suicide bomber drives his vehicle into the United Nations building in Abuja, killing 25 people and injuring more than 100. This is the first time the sect targets the international community.
2817 September 2011: Babakura Fugu, brother-in-law of Mohammed Yusuf, is shot dead outside his house in Maiduguri two days after acting as an intermediary in a peace meeting between Nigeria’s ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and Boko Haram. The sect denies any involvement in his murder.
2922 October 2011: Boko Haram claims responsibility for the murder of a cameraman working with the government-owned National Television Authority (NTA) in Maiduguri. The sect says the cameraman was spying on the militants.
30November 2011: Boko Haram announces there will be no dialogue with the government until all of its members are released from jail.
314 November 2011: Boko Haram carries out a series of attacks on security facilities, banks, and churches in Damaturu and Potiskum, Yobe State, leaving approximately 150 people dead. Two Boko Haram suicide bombers fail to detonate their bombs inside the headquarters of the Joint Task Force (JTF) and blow themselves up outside the military compound. The Borno governor’s convoy is targeted on its way from the airport to the governor’s mansion.
327 December 2011: A bomb attributed to Boko Haram kills eight in the Oriyapata district of Kaduna city.
3317 December 2011: A shootout between sect members and policemen following a raid on the hideout of a Boko Haram sect leader in the Darmanawa area of Kano State kills seven, including three police officers.
3422 December 2011: Boko Haram places bombs in various parts of Maiduguri, killing twenty people. Meanwhile, four policemen and a civilian are killed in another gun and bomb attack on a police building in Potiskum, Yobe State. Approximately 100 people are also killed following multiple bomb and AK47 attacks by Boko Haram and ensuing gun battles with military troops in the Pompomari outskirts of Damaturu, Yobe State.
3525 December 2011: A man driving a vehicle laden with bombs blows himself up outside Saint Theresa Catholic Church in Medulla, Niger State, killing 26 worshippers and 17 bystanders. Three secret police (SSS) operatives and a Boko Haram bomber are killed in another suicide attack on a military convoy at the gates of the SSS headquarters in Damaturu. A policeman is killed in a botched Boko Haram bomb attack on a church in the Ray Field area of Jos.
3630 December 2011: Four Muslims are killed in a Boko Haram bomb and shooting attack targeting a military checkpoint in Maiduguri as worshippers are leaving a mosque after attending Friday prayers.
3731 December 2011: President Jonathan declares a state of emergency in parts of Borno, Niger, Plateau, and Yobe states and announces the closing of all northern borders.
382-11 January 2012: Boko Haram issues a three-day ultimatum to southern Nigerians to depart from the North.
396 January 2012: Eight worshippers are killed in a shooting attack on a church in Yola. Boko Haram gunmen also shoot dead 17 Christian mourners in the town of Mubi in the north-eastern state of Adamawa.
409 January 2012: Boko Haram gunmen shoot dead a secret police operative along with his civilian friend as they leave a mosque in Biu, Borno State. Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan says Boko Haram has infiltrated the executive, parliamentary, and judicial wings of government.
4118 January 2012: A key suspect in the 2011 Christmas Day bombing in Abuja, which had left more than forty people dead, escapes police custody. The scandal forces the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, to resign.
4220 January 2012: Boko Haram launches coordinated attacks on police facilities in the city of Kano, leaving an estimated 250 people dead, most of them civilians – the highest death toll in a single attack since 2009. Among the victims is Enenche Akogwu, a journalist working for Channels Television, as well as three Indian nationals. Boko Haram gunmen also free between 50 and 100 jailed members in Kano.
4324 January 2012: In Kano, security forces kill Uzairu Abba Abdullahi, a textile seller and member of the sect, who is suspected of having planned the attacks that took place in Kano on 20 January.
442 February 2012: Six people suspected to be dissident members of the sect are shot dead in Maiduguri by Boko Haram. A sect spokesman declares to journalists that the sect will execute any of its members who take the side of the government.
457-9 March 2012: The Nigerian army arrests Abu Muhammad, a leader of a group close to Al-Qaeda and suspected to have kidnapped the British and Italian engineers Chris McManus and Franco Lamolina on 12 May 2011 at Birnin Kebbi in north-western Nigeria. On the basis of the information given by Muhammad, security forces raid a hideout in Sokoto. The hostages are killed by their abductors during the operation. Although Boko Haram is suspected, there is no clear evidence that the sect was actually involved in the abduction and killing of the two foreigners.
468 April 2012: A suicide car bomber fails to reach the church he was targeting and detonates his bomb on a busy street in Kaduna on Easter Sunday, killing at least 41 people. The army claims that Boko Haram has executed its own spokesman, Abul Qaqa II, and that the sect is riven by internal divisions. (In January 2012, the SSS said it had captured Boko Haram’s previous spokesman, Abul Qaqa I.)
4726 April 2012: Boko Haram bombs the offices of the newspaper ThisDay in Abuja and a building that houses several media outlets including ThisDay in Kaduna, killing four people in Abuja and three in Kaduna. The sect claims the newspaper has been reporting “lies” about the militants and condemns an article dishonouring the Prophet, published in 2002.
4829 April 2012: Suspected Boko Haram gunmen attack two Christian services at Bayero University in Kano and kill 19 people, including two university lecturers.
4910 May 2012: Muhammad Ali, the branch leader of the Shiite Islamic sect in Kano city, is killed by armed men suspected to be Boko Haram members. Authorities fear a conflict between Boko Haram and other northern Nigerian sects.
5017-19 June 2012: 100 people are killed and more than 300 injured during attacks by Boko Haram on churches in Kaduna and Zaria. In reprisal, Christian youth mobs kill about twenty people they suspect to be Hausa-Fulani in Kaduna.
5121 June 2012: The US State Department lists three Boko Haram commanders – Abubakar Shekau, Abubakar Adam Kambar, and Khalid al-Barnawi – as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists”.
526 August 2012: Seven policemen die in a Boko Haram suicide attack against a police station in Sokoto. The station is situated a few metres from the house of former Nigerian president Shehu Shagari.
5321 August 2012: A Muslim religious leader and one of his followers are executed in a mosque in Biu by suspected Boko Haram militants. In Maiduguri, men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) begin to distribute anti-Boko Haram video tapes to locals.
545-6 September 2012: The sect destroys more than two dozen mobile telephone towers across northern Nigeria. Boko Haram states that the attacks are meant to avenge the mobile phone companies’ cooperation with Nigerian intelligence services.
5523 September 2012: The JTF says it has killed 35 Boko Haram militants in Damaturu and arrested sixty others.
5624 September 2012: The army and the police announce the death of a commander of Boko Haram – Abubakar Yola – and the arrest of 156 militants by troops of the Restore Sanity Operation in Mubi, Adamawa State.
576 October 2012: Three Chinese nationals working as cooks are executed as they are leaving a market at Gubio, not far from Maiduguri. Some media reports also mention the assassination of a Ghanaian and two Indians in Maiduguri.
587 October 2012: Soldiers of the JTF declare that they have killed thirty members of Boko Haram in Damaturu, including its leader Abubakar Shekau, and arrested ten others in Kandahar.
598 October 2012: An officer of the JTF is killed in Maiduguri when Boko Haram members hit his convoy with an IED. In reprisal, soldiers attack civilians suspected of supporting the sect in the Gwange area of Maiduguri, setting on fire at least fifty houses, stores, and vehicles and killing thirty people.
6012 October 2012: United Nations Security Council passes a French resolution approving an African-led force to assist the army of Mali in combating secessionist and Islamist groups in the northern part of Mali.
6128 October 2012: At least eight people die and 145 are wounded in an attack by alleged Boko Haram members against St. Rita’s church in Kaduna. In reprisal, groups of Christian youth attack Muslims in the area.
621 November 2012: Amnesty International releases a report denouncing grave human rights violations by both Boko Haram and the Nigerian security forces in northern Nigeria. The same day, Abu Muhammad Ibn Abdulazeez, presenting himself as a spokesman of the sect, declares that Boko Haram is ready to negotiate with the government.
6320 December 2012: Gunmen seize French engineer Francis Collomp in his compound in Katsina. In a statement sent to journalists four days later, Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru claims responsibility for the kidnapping.
6411 January 2013: France launches the military intervention “Opération Serval”, officially aiming to uproot Islamist groups in control of northern Mali and to restore Mali’s territorial integrity. The groups include Ansar Dine, MOJWA, and AQIM, with the alleged cooperation of Boko Haram.
6519 January 2013: Gunmen attack the convoy of the Emir of Kano. The emir survives but his driver and two guards are killed in the attack.
668-11 February 2013: Nine female polio vaccinators are killed in two separate shootings in health centres of Kano. Three days later, three North Korean doctors are hacked to death in Potiskum. Boko Haram is suspected of both attacks.
6711 February 2013: Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan pays an official visit to France. The discussions with French President François Hollande focus on the situation in Mali and the rise of Islamist militancy in the region.
6816 February 2013: Ansaru, a splinter group of Boko Haram, kidnaps seven foreign expatriates from a Lebanese construction company, Setraco, at Jama’are in Bauchi. It is the largest kidnapping in northern Nigeria in recent times.
6919 February 2013: Four children and three adult members of the French Moulin-Fournier family are kidnapped by gunmen in northern Cameroon while visiting the Waza National Park, near the border with Nigeria. After contradictory statements, Boko Haram finally claims responsibility.
707 March 2013: During his first official visit to Maiduguri, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan rejects the amnesty programme for Boko Haram members, suggested by the Sultan of Sokoto.
7110 March 2013: Ansaru executes the seven abducted construction company expatriates in response to troop movements perceived as signs of a rescue mission by the British forces in Bauchi.
7218 March 2013: More than seventy people are killed in the bombing of luxury buses at a station in the Sabon Gari district of Kano – home to many Christians from southern Nigeria. Boko Haram is suspected.
734 April 2013: Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan sets a committee of experts to work on an amnesty programme for Boko Haram militants.
7411 April 2013: Boko Haram rejects the idea of an amnesty.
7519 April 2013: Cameroon’s President Paul Biya announces the release of the French Moulin-Fournier family held by Boko Haram, after the family had spent two months in captivity.
7622 April 2013: Fighting between military forces and Boko Haram militants leaves more than 185 people dead at Baga in Borno State, near the border with Chad. Violence began when gunmen opened fire in a video-viewing centre.
7714 May 2013: President Goodluck Jonathan declares a state of emergency in the states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa in an attempt to combat the activities of Boko Haram head-on. This involves the largest contingent of military personnel mobilised in Nigeria since the Civil War.
78June-October 2013: Multiple confrontations between Boko Haram members and the JTF in Borno (along the Cameroon border and many other parts of the state), in Yobe, and to a lesser extent in Adamawa, resulting in hundreds of deaths. The “Mechanised Division’s Operation BOYONA” makes use of the air force and heavy artillery to bomb suspected Boko Haram camps and hide-outs.
7919 August 2013: Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir Musa releases a statement claiming that Abubakar Shekau is likely to have died between 25 July and 3 August 2013 from gunshot wounds following a clash with the JTF in the Sambisa forest near Cameroon. The statement creates confusion among top army officers.
8025 September 2013: Abubakar Shekau appears in a video sent to news agencies. He mentions some recent developments of the conflict, such as the attacks in Benisheik on 17 September, which resulted in about ninety deaths, and mocks the military for claiming him dead. The JTF states the authenticity of the video is doubtful.
8129 September 2013: An attack on the College of Agriculture in Gujba, Yobe by suspected Boko Haram members kills forty students.
824 October 2013: Newspapers cite sources reporting that the retaliation operations following the events in Gujba have resulted in the deaths of more than 180 Boko Haram members and a few soldiers. Since the state of emergency was declared, the press has reported six events, mentioning between 50 and 190 fatalities.
8313 November 2013: Boko Haram and Ansaru are formally designated “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” by the US Department of State.

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