| Mainok attack | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Boko Haram insurgency | |||||
 Location of Borno State in Nigeria | |||||
| |||||
| Belligerents | |||||
 Nigeria |  ISWAP | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
| 33 soldiers killed | Unknown | ||||
On 25 April 2021, a large group of ISWAP insurgents killed 33 soldiers in Mainok, a town 36 miles (58 kilometres) west of Maiduguri in Borno State, Nigeria. [1] [2]
Wearing military camouflage, the militants arrived in four mine-resistant trucks, a scorpion armored personnel carrier, and several gun trucks. They split into three groups before attacking the army base. At the base, ISWAP destroyed a T-55 battle tank, a BTR-4EN, and stole several MRAPs. [3] [4] [5] The attackers fled to their camp around the Lawan Mainari axis, as the air force carried out airstrikes against them. [2] [6] When the ISWAP terrorists were confronted with military planes heading towards them to attack them, they set fire to the police station in Mainok in a rage and then fled to the primary school there. [7]
When soldiers arrived from Damaturu in response, ISWAP ambushed the reinforcements, killing three, injuring nine, and stealing a MRAP. [6] An air force drone accidentally bombed a vehicle belonging to the army, killing 20. [8] [6]
The attack was followed by prolonged and unrelenting fighting in the towns of Geidam, Kumuya and Buni Gari in Yobe province. Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms were deployed in the sky by the NAF. [7]
Boko Haram, officially known as Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād, is an Islamist terrorist 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.
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.
Abu Mohammed Abubakar al-Sheikawi 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.
The Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa, better known as Ansaru and less commonly called al-Qaeda in the Lands Beyond the Sahel, is an Islamic fundamentalist Jihadist militant organisation originally based in the northeast of Nigeria. Originally a faction of Boko Haram, the group announced in 2012 that it had pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and was independent. Despite this, Ansaru and other Boko Haram factions continued to work closely together until the former increasingly declined and stopped its insurgent activities in 2013. The group was revived in 2020, and has been involved in the Nigerian bandit conflict.
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.
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The following lists events from 2014 in Nigeria.
The December 2014 Cameroon clashes were a number of incidents that occurred between 28–29 December 2014 in variety of locations in Cameroon's Far North Region. The event included attacks on civilians and military positions carried out by Nigeria-based Boko Haram; the attacks were followed by a successful Cameroonian military counter offensive.
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.
The Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP), officially Wilāyat Garb Ifrīqīyā, meaning "West African Province", is a militant group and administrative division of the Islamic State (IS), a Salafi jihadist militant group and unrecognised quasi-state. ISWAP is primarily active in the Chad Basin, and fights an extensive insurgency against the states of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Turkey. It is an offshoot of Boko Haram with which it has a violent rivalry; Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau killed himself in battle with ISWAP in 2021. Until March 2022, ISWAP acted as an umbrella organization for all IS factions in West Africa including the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS), although the actual ties between ISWAP and IS-GS were limited.
Starting in late January 2015, a coalition of West African troops launched an offensive against the Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria.
Rann is a town in Borno State, Nigeria, adjacent to the border with Cameroon. It was home to a camp for internally displaced people.
The Chad Basin campaign of 2018–2020 was a series of battles and offensives in the southern Chad Basin, particularly northeastern Nigeria, which took place amid the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency. The Chad Basin witnessed an upsurge of insurgent activity from early November 2018, as rebels belonging to the Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram launched offensives and several raids to regain military strength and seize territory in a renewed attempt to establish an Islamic state in the region. These attacks, especially those by ISWAP, met with considerable success and resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians. The member states of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF), namely Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon responded to the increased insurgent activity with counter-offensives. These operations repulsed the rebels in many areas but failed to fully contain the insurgency.
Since 2015, the border area between Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger has been a hotbed for jihadist forces originating from Mali. The insurgency has taken place in two distinct regions of Niger. In southwest, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and the Nusrat al-Islam have carried out attacks in the tri-border area with Burkina Faso and Mali. Meanwhile, in the southeast, the Islamic State in the West African Province has established control in parts of southern Niger.
Operation Boma's Wrath was a military operation launched by Chad against Boko Haram. Operation was launched on March 31, 2020, one week after Boko Haram's attack on Chadian military base in which 92 Chadian soldiers were killed. Aim of the operation was to destroy hidden jihadist bases and repulse their forces out of Chad. Operation lasted 10 days and according to Chadian military it resulted in roughly 1000 insurgents killed, their bases in Chad destroyed, and capture of arms caches previously taken from Chad.
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.
On April 23, 2021, militants from the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) stormed the town of Geidam, in Yobe State, Nigeria, killing several civilians and sparking a battle with Nigerian armed forces.
Between December 30, 2022 and January 7, 2023, Boko Haram launched a series of raids against Islamic State – West Africa Province on various islands on Lake Chad, with major battles occurring on Toumbun Allura Karnawa and Toumbun Gini.
On June 13, 2020, the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) launched five coordinated attacks on different locations across Borno State, Nigeria. Four of the attacks took place in Monguno and one took place in the village of Goni Usmanti in Nganzai LGA, and over sixty people were killed in the attacks.
On July 24, 2021, jihadists from Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) attacked a Cameroonian outpost in Sagme, Cameroon, sparking a battle that killed eight Cameroonian soldiers and twenty jihadists.
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