Boko Haram under scrutiny over foreign fighters claim

Kano - Cameroon's claims this week that two
Tuareg fighters were among the dead when
troops bombarded Boko Haram positions have
sparked fresh interest in the group's links to the
wider jihadi network.
Communication minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary
did not elaborate on the nationality of the
foreigners, who were among the more than 100
dead during an attempted cross-border incursion
at the weekend.
But with the Tuareg people found in Mali and
Algeria, which are both home to Islamist groups,
the claim is coming under close examination.
Boko Haram was designated an al-Qaeda-linked
terror group earlier this year while its recent land
grab in Nigeria's northeast has prompted
comparisons to Islamic State militants in Syria
and Iraq.
Analysts remain sceptical, though, about the
extent of its direct operational links with outside
groups, despite claims that some fighters were
trained in Mali and arms are smuggled from
Libya.
Allowances
Security sources in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria,
say Boko Haram has for some time encouraged
mercenaries from neighbouring countries such as
Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
"These fighters are paid allowances after every
raid, which ranges between 50 000 naira ($300)
and 150 000 naira for each fighter," the source
told AFP in a recent interview.
Others said the recruitment was to be expected,
given the increase in violence this year that has
left thousands dead and prompted hundreds of
thousands of civilians to flee.
"It will not be surprising at this stage," said
security analyst Abdullahi Bawa Wase.
"The enlargement of the original Boko Haram with
mercenaries and criminal and political elements is
not in doubt."
Kyari Mohammed, a Boko Haram specialist from
the Centre for Peace Studies in Yola, Adamawa
state, said he, too, was not surprised at the
arrival of foreign fighters.
History of violence
But he questioned how many foreign guns-for-
hire had been recruited into Boko Haram's ranks,
which according to one recent estimate numbered
between 6,000 and 8,000 in total.
"When you are fighting this kind of war you
expect the influx of mercenaries, especially in this
region where we have porous borders and a
history of violence," he said.
"There could be infiltration of mercenaries across
these borders but not on a huge scale."
'Al-Qaeda in west Africa'?
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has
described Boko Haram as "al-Qaeda in west
Africa" and has been keen to play up a regional
dimension to the five-year insurgency.
Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh has said
weapons recovered during operations were "very
alien to Nigerian armed forces, which means there
are people from outside fuelling this thing".
"I know that people from outside Nigeria are in
this war. They are fighting us," he said earlier this
year.
Humanitarian crisis
But some analysts see Nigeria's position as a
way of deflecting criticism its own role in
transforming a largely peaceful domestic anti-
corruption movement into a heavily armed terror
group.
Boko Haram gained a higher international profile
in April this year when it abducted more than 200
schoolgirls from the remote northeastern town of
Chibok.
The United States said last week that it was
concerned by its capture of a succession of towns
and the potential for a humanitarian crisis.
Despite that, security experts say the conflict
remains largely an internal domestic issue and
that Boko Haram has localised aims.
Others point out that forced conscription of young
men from across Nigeria's borders could also
explain the presence of foreign nationals to boost
Boko Haram's depleted ranks.
In Cameroon, young men from towns and villages
near the Nigerian border have been conscripted
with inducements of motorcycles and 150 000
naira in cash as a "signing-on fee", the security
source in Maiduguri added.
Police in Cameroon's impoverished far north
region confirmed to AFP in August that hundreds
of young people had been forced to fight.
"Children from Kolofata were conscripted,
drugged, manipulated and sent against their own
city," one police officer said.