| 2009 Boko Haram uprising | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Boko Haram insurgency | |||||||
 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Boko Haram |  Nigerian Government | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Mohammed Yusuf  Abubakar Shekau Bakura Doro |  Umaru Yar'Adua Ibrahim Geidam Ali Modu Sheriff Isa Yuguda Saleh Maina Christopher Dega | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Around 1,000 dead total, mostly[ specify ] civilians [1] [2] | |||||||
The 2009 Boko Haram uprising was a conflict between Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group, and Nigerian security forces.
Violence across several states in northeastern Nigeria resulted in more than 1,000 dead, with around 700 killed in the city of Maiduguri alone, according to one military official. [1] [2] [3]
A government inquiry later found that, while long-standing tensions existed between Boko Haram and the Nigerian Security forces, the immediate cause of the violence stemmed from a confrontation between a group of sect members and joint Task Forces located at custom bridge Gamboru ward in the city of Maiduguri. The Boko Haram members were en route to bury one of their members at the Gwange cemetery. The officers, part of a special operation to suppress violence and rampant crime in Borno State, demanded that the young men comply with a law requiring motorcycle passengers to wear helmets. They refused and, in the confrontation that followed, police shot and wounded several of the men. [1]
According to initial media reports, the violence began on 26 July when Boko Haram launched an attack on a police station in Bauchi State. Clashes between militants and the Nigeria Police Force erupted in Kano, Yobe and Borno soon after. But President Umaru Yar’Adua disputed this version of events, claiming that government security forces had struck first.
"I want to emphasize that this is not an inter-religious crisis and it is not the Taliban group that attacked the security agents first, no. It was as a result of a security information gathered on their intention ... to launch a major attack," he said. [4]
Nigerian troops surrounded the home of Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf, the founder and spiritual leader of Boko Haram since 2002, in Maiduguri on 28 July after his followers had barricaded themselves inside. On 30 July, the military captured Yusuf and transferred him to the custody of the police. They summarily executed him in public outside police headquarters. [5]
Islam Online suggests that politics, not religion, was the cause of the violence. [6] People such as Christian pastor George Orjih were murdered specifically because they refused to convert to Islam. [7] [5]
Prior to the clashes, many local Muslim leaders and at least one military official had warned the Nigerian authorities about the Boko Haram sect. Those warnings were reportedly ignored. [3]
On 26 July, 2002, more than 50 people were killed and several dozen were injured in Bauchi when a firefight erupted as a police station was attacked by 70 Nigerian Boko Haram sect members, who were armed with grenades and small arms. One government soldier and 32 Boko Haram militants were killed in the aftermath of the initial attack. [8] [9] The government claimed that 39 militants had been killed and confirmed the death of a soldier. The attack was initiated by Boko Haram after their leaders were detained by the police. [8] Security forces retaliated by raiding the neighbourhoods where the group was entrenched. [8]
Isa Yuguda, State Governor of Bauchi, commented: "We have pre-empted the militants. Otherwise the situation would have been bad. I'm calling on all the people of Bauchi to be calm and be rest assured the situation has been brought under control." [10]
Yuguda declared a night-time curfew, and the police maintained a visible profile. [9] [11] Businesses remained open in the area. [9]
In July 2009, media reported that 100 bodies were found beside police headquarters in Maiduguri. [11] [12] Hundreds of people were leaving their homes to escape the violence. [11] [12] A jailbreak was reported but was not immediately confirmed. [11] Several civilian corpses lay in the city's streets; witnesses said they had been shot after being pulled from their cars. [11] The country's army and police were both on patrol and firing at suspects. [11]
On 28 July, Army soldiers reportedly launched an offensive on the compound of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf and a nearby mosque used by his followers in the Borno state capital of Maiduguri. Troops shelled Mohammed Yusuf's home in the city after Yusuf's followers barricaded themselves inside. [13] [14] Shots rained across the city. [13]
On 30 July, Nigerian security forces killed 100 Boko Haram militants in fighting in Maiduguri. Security forces fought their way into a mosque occupied by militants, raking the interior with machine gun fire. Elsewhere, Military and Police forces engaged militants in house-to-house fighting. It was initially reported that Boko Haram vice-chairman Abubakar Shekau had been killed, but he was later reported alive. [15] Nigerian policemen were also killed. After the government declared Maidguri to be secured, Nigerian forces began setting up mortar positions to shell the remaining enemy compound. [16]
On 30 July, Yusuf was captured by the military and handed over to the police at the police headquarters in Maiduguri. Police officers summarily executed Yusuf inside the compound in full view of public onlookers. [5] [17] Police officials initially claimed that either Yusuf was shot while trying to escape or died of wounds sustained during a gun battle with the military. [5] [17] The police also executed other Boko Haram suspects, including Yusuf's father-in-law, outside the police headquarters. [5] [17]
On 2 August, a group of women and children abducted by Boko Haram were found locked in a house in Maiduguri. [18] The military said a total of 700 people were killed in Maiduguri during the clashes. [18] The Red Cross later said that it had taken 780 bodies from the streets of the city to be buried in mass graves. [19]
A gun battle lasting several hours took place in Potiskum. Boko Haram militants set a police station on fire using fuel-laden motorcycles. The police station burned to the ground, and as a result, a police officer and a fire safety officer were both killed. Police engaged the fighters and wounded several. Police arrested 23 fighters after the battle. [11] According to Nigerian sources, 43 Boko Haram fighters were killed in a shootout near the city on 30 July. [20] [21]
Three people were killed in an attack in Wudil, and police forces made more than 33 arrests. [11] Wudil's senior police officer was injured. [11]
Maiduguri is the capital and the largest city of Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria, on the continent of Africa. The city sits along the seasonal Ngadda River which disappears into the Firki swamps in the areas around Lake Chad. Maiduguri was founded in 1907 as a military outpost by the British Empire during the colonial period. As of 2022, Maiduguri is estimated to have a population of approximately two million people, in the metropolitan area.
The University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) is a Federal higher institution located in Maiduguri, the capital city of Borno State in Northeast Nigeria. The university was created by the federal government of Nigeria in 1975, with the intention of its becoming one of the country's principal higher-education institutions. It enrolls about 25,000 students in its combined programs, which include a college of medicine and faculties of agriculture, arts, environmental science, Allied health science, Basic medical science, dentistry, education, engineering, law, management science, pharmacy, science, social science, and veterinary medicine. With the encouragement of the federal government, the university has recently been increasing its research efforts, particularly in the fields of agriculture, medicine and conflict resolution, and expanding the university press. The university is the major higher institution of learning in the north-eastern part of the country.
Mohammed Yusuf, also known as Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf, was a Nigerian militant who founded the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in 2002. He was its leader until he was killed during the 2009 Boko Haram uprising.
Boko Haram, officially known as Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād, is an Islamist jihadist organization based in northeastern Nigeria, which is also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. In 2016, the group split, resulting in the emergence of a hostile faction known as the Islamic State's West Africa Province.
Gwoza is a local government area of Borno State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Gwoza, a border town "about 135 kilometres South-East of Maiduguri." The postal code of the area is 610.
The Boko Haram insurgency began in July 2009, when the militant Islamist and jihadist rebel group Boko Haram started an armed rebellion against the government of Nigeria. The conflict is taking place within the context of long-standing issues of religious violence between Nigeria's Muslim and Christian communities, and the insurgents' ultimate aim is to establish an Islamic state in the region.
The Bauchi Prison break was an attack on the federal prison in the North-Eastern Nigerian city of Bauchi, in which members of Boko Haram released 721 prisoners. The attack occurred on 7 September 2010, and was carried out by approximately 50 gunmen. Of the 721 prisoners who escaped, as many as 150 were affiliated with the terrorist group Boko Haram. The Bauchi prison break was part of a broader escalation of Boko Haram activity, that escalation served as retaliation for the death of one of the group's primary leaders. Following this, Boko Haram has staged multiple subsequent attacks on government and religious targets in Bauchi state.
A series of assaults on businesses occurred in northeastern Nigeria on 5 and 6 January 2012, followed by attacks on police stations and government offices in the north on 20 January. Over 180 people were killed.
Abubakar Mohammed Shekau was a Nigerian militant who was the leader of Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist organization based in northeastern Nigeria, from 2009 to 2021. He served as deputy leader to the group's founder, Mohammed Yusuf, until Yusuf's execution in 2009.
Timeline of the Boko Haram insurgency is the chronology of the Boko Haram insurgency, an ongoing armed conflict between Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. Boko Haram have carried out many attacks against the military, police and civilians since 2009, mostly in Nigeria. The low-intensity conflict is centred on Borno State. It peaked in the mid-2010s, when Boko Haram extended their insurgency into Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
The Konduga massacre took place in Konduga, Borno State, Nigeria on 11 February 2014. The massacre was conducted by Boko Haram Islamists against Christian villagers. At least 62 people were killed.
The following lists events from 2014 in Nigeria.
The 2014 Kano bombing was a terrorist attack on November 28, 2014, at the Central Mosque in Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim Northern Nigeria during the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. The mosque is next to the palace of the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, Nigeria's second most senior Muslim cleric, who had urged the civilians to protect themselves by arming up against Boko Haram. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up and gunmen opened fire on those who were trying to escape. Around 120 people were killed and another 260 injured.
The following lists events that happened during 2015 in Nigeria.
The 2015 Baga massacre was a series of mass killings carried out by the Boko Haram terrorist group in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Baga and its environs, in the state of Borno, between 3 January and 7 January 2015.
Starting in late January 2015, a coalition of West African troops launched an offensive against the Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria.
On the evening of September 20, 2015, a series of bombings took place in Maiduguri and Monguno, Nigeria, killing at least 145 people and injuring at least 97 others. The majority of casualties occurred in Maiduguri where four explosions killed at least 117 people.
The Koshebe massacre took place on 28 November 2020 in the village of Koshebe, Nigeria, in Borno State, when as many as 110 civilians and peasant farmers were killed and six were wounded as they worked in rice fields in Koshebe village, near the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri. The attack was thought to be carried out by the Boko Haram insurgency. About 15 women were also kidnapped.
In May 2021, the Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP) launched an invasion of the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, Nigeria, which was serving as the main base of Boko Haram, a rival jihadist rebel group. Following heavy fighting, ISWAP overran the Boko Haram troops, cornering their leader Abubakar Shekau. The two sides entered negotiations about Boko Haram's surrender during which Shekau committed suicide, possibly detonating himself with a suicide vest. Shekau's death was regarded as a major event by outside observers, as he had been one of the main driving forces in the Islamist insurgency in Nigeria and neighboring countries since 2009.
Bakura Doro, also known by his pseudonym Abu Umaimata or Abu Umayma, is a Nigerian militant who is the current leader or "imam" of Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group involved in an insurgency against Nigeria and other states.
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