Nnamdi Felix Since 2010 when the founder of the Boko Haram sect, Mohammed Yusuf, died in the custody of security forces, the sect’s mode of unleashing terror on Nigerians has evolved. The world took notice of the terrorist sect when it set off its first vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, IED, in the 2011 attack on the United Nations headquarters in Abuja. That vehicle-bomb attack clearly marked Boko Haram’s first lethal operation against Western interests. At least 23 people were killed, and more than 80 others injured in the attack. A series of attacks by the group on harpless Nigerians and security personnel and facilities alike with IEDs soon followed, including the bombing of the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters. Recent atrocities include the recent twin-bombing in Nyanya, about 16 kilometres to the Federal Capital City centre where over 70 persons lost their lives with more than 200 others critically wounded. This new mode of attack followed the group’s previous attacks on far-flung security outposts and military formations. However, in those attacks, only security operatives and formations were targets. This terror mode evolved with the sect focusing attention on soft targets, especially school children and market women. Hundreds of school children were ruthlessly murdered while in school and at night while sleeping in their dormitories. The sect’s trend of hitting at soft targets peaked with the recent audacious abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, in the southern part of Borno State. Soon after this, the sect again shifted its tactics, and appears to have settled for the use of female suicide bombers to unleash untold terror on Nigerians. Recently, three women – Hafsat Usman Bako, Zainab Idris and Aisha Abubakar – were arrested by security operatives following a recent bombing attempt on 301 Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Gombe State. The attempt was carried out by a suspected female bomber who blew herself up in the process. The leader of the arrested suspected female terrorists, Hafsat Usman Bako, was said to have been married to a member of the Islamic sect who was killed by security forces. She continued her relationship with the sect and soon became a recruiter for the sect, specialising in surreptitious recruitment of female members into the sect’s fold, as claimed by security officials. “The arrested trio suspects were luring ladies, especially widows and young girls, by enticing them with male suitors who are mainly members of the Boko Haram sect, for marriage. Before their arrest, they were on a mission to take additional briefing from the leadership of the terror group,” defence officials stated in a press release. The arrest of the three suspected female terrorists marked the discovery of an existing female wing of the dreaded Boko Haram sect. As Nigerians grappled with this new discovery and its implications in the ongoing war on terror, another female, a 10-year-old would-be suicide bomber, was also arrested shortly before another female suicide bomber blew herself up at Northwest University in Kano, killing six people in the fourth of such attacks within the same week, all involving female suicide bombers. The 10-year-old girl, Hadiza Musa – who was arrested along with her 18-year-old sister, Zainab Musa – had a suicide bomber’s explosives belt strapped to her chest. According to Mr. Mike Omeri, Nigerian government’s spokesman on terrorist activities, the girls were being driven by a man in his 20s late in the evening in Funtua town, west of Kano, when they were stopped at a police roadblock and ordered out of their Honda hatchback. “They were asked to alight but when they got down, officers saw that the youngest one was strapped with explosives; it was an IED on a vest she was wearing. The girl did not offer resistance and she was stopped and her vest was demobilised. We have not yet forensically investigated it, but it was prepared and would have caused havoc. The older girl and the man tried to escape but they were cut off by ordinary citizens and arrested,” the spokesman stated. Last month’s serial female bombers’ attacks in Kano State during the national holiday to mark Muslim’s Sallah celebration, announced Boko Haram’s new tactics to a bewildered nation. Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at a trade show and a petrol station in Kano, killing one other person and injuring at least six others, while another female suicide bomber killed herself but no one else while trying to target police officers. “We wish to assure Nigerians that the government is putting all efforts and resources into countering the violent insurgency by Boko Haram,” said Omeri while condemning the new terror trend. “It is reprehensible that the terrorists are now using little girls that they have indoctrinated, or lured, or tricked and forced into being involved in something they have no reason in their mind to understand.” At the last count, four female suicide bombers have been reported to have caused the murder of scores of people in Kano during the last week of July. Observers see the new trend of terror in Nigeria as confusing, noting that northern Nigerian women are some of the most sheltered in the world. One observer pointed out that even the poorest northern Nigerian parents give up everything to protect their female children. “While male kids from poor homes can be thrown to the streets, often under the pretext of acquisition of Islamic education, to fend for themselves, female children, for the most part, are often featherbedded.” In the latest tactical offensive, hijab-wearing women, laced with improvised explosive belts, are beginning to waste lives in these attacks. The deadly tactic sends a hail of shrapnel piercing through the flesh and breaking the bones of unsuspecting bystanders as the female suicide bombers detonate the IEDs strapped around their bodies. During the Kano attacks, a hijab-clad female suicide bomber killed three people and herself with her belt device at an NNPC petrol station, and injured eight others. Hours later, another female attacker targeted the city’s Trade Fair Complex, wounding six bystanders, according to the police. In all, there were four bomb attacks by female terrorists in the space of four days. In June, a female suicide bomber killed a soldier in front of the 301 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Gombe, capital of Gombe State. This new dimension in Boko Haram’s terror mode is however not peculiar to Nigeria. In April 2010, a female suicide bomber identified as Dzhennet Adullayeva, a teenager, was among the culprits in the Moscow metro attack that killed dozens of people. Investigators established her identity after series of forensic and genetic examinations as well as identification procedures. Her birth date was given as 1992 and she was said to be the widow of a prominent Dagestani rebel militant leader who was killed by federal forces in late December, 2009. An estimated 500,000 people were riding trains at the metro at the time of the attacks. Similarly, in October, 2011 at Istanbul, Turkey, a female suicide bomber killed two people and herself in an attack at Turkey’s eastern Bingol province, leaving 20 others seriously injured. The female suicide bomber detonated her explosives while approaching a gathering in the town of Bingol. Also in Moscow, in October 2013 a female suicide bomber caused a blast that ripped through a passenger bus in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, killing at least six people and injuring 33 others. According to Russian authorities, indications are that the bomber was a 30-year-old woman from Russia’s semi autonomous Republic of Dagestan, where Islamic militants have been fighting Moscow’s rule. The use of hijab-wearing female suicide bombers sparked off a widespread speculation across the nation on an alleged ban of the use of hijab by Muslim women in Nigeria by the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Suleiman Abba. A rattled Nigeria Police Force was quick to stem the spread of the speculation as the police spokesman, Mr. Frank Mba, categorically denied the speculation. “For purposes of emphasis, the new IGP Abba has not and is not contemplating a ban on the use of hijab,” he said. Similarly, the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, threw its weight against the speculated ban of the hijab, warning the Federal Government against banning hijab as such proposal would be unconstitutional. The NBA President, Mr. Okey Wali, rather urged the government to find a lasting and peaceful solution to the security challenges threatening the country. “Placing a ban on wearing hijab due to the recent spate of attacks by female suicide bombers was not a positive and lasting strategy to curbing insecurity. It is the right of every individual to dress according to the requirement of his or her religion and it is not an option to ask female Muslim faithful to stop wearing the hijab.” the senior advocate added. Expressing the preparedness of security operatives to tackle the new terror tactics of Boko Haram, Mba explained that established international terror organisations use female suicide bombers mainly because women generally raise fewer suspicion, particularly when there are security layers: “If you have been following the trend of terrorism worldwide, you will understand that the use of a female suicide bomber is not new. But it is a new trend in our own part of the world. By our rules of engagement and by our culture, male security operatives generally are not allowed to search females. Henceforth... you will see an increase in female security personnel on roads and in other places where stop and search exercises are being carried out.” He called on Nigerians to be aware of this and be prepared to see more female officers and operatives. The aftermath: https://thenewsnigeria.com.ng2014/08/13/kanos-women-abandon-hijab-to-avoid-suspicions/