A brand new armed group known as Lakurawa is attacking villages in distant corners of northwestern Nigeria and throughout the border in Niger, posing new threats to 2 international locations that already undergo from protracted battle involving a number of different teams, together with Boko Haram.
In November, the Nigerian military acknowledged for the primary time the existence of Lakurawa and stated its members have been working from headquarters within the nation’s Sokoto and Kebbi states.
Assaults by the group have killed dozens of individuals, and not less than 9 suspected members are recognized and have been declared needed by the Nigerian military.
The northern area is likely one of the hottest beds of violence in Nigeria, with its states experiencing a poisonous mixture of armed assaults, kidnappings and banditry lately. The Nigerian military has additionally been grappling with a long-running battle with the Boko Haram armed group within the northeast for greater than a decade.
Strained relations between Nigeria and Niger, stemming from Niger’s coup d’etat in July 2023, have additionally affected joint navy operations and given the Lakurawa group extra room to increase, officers say.
Right here’s what to know concerning the group:
Who’s Lakurawa?
In keeping with Nigerian military officers, Lakurawa fighters are believed to initially be from troubled Mali, a Sahelian nation that’s at present beneath fireplace from a swarm of transnational armed teams searching for territory to control.
Teams like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and ISIL affiliate within the Higher Sahara are a few of the armed teams destabilising Mali.
Officers in Nigeria say Lakurawa members are affiliated with the Malian teams however have for years settled in communities alongside the Nigeria-Niger border, marrying native ladies and recruiting youth.
Researchers tracing the origin of the group, nonetheless, be aware that its members haven’t simply begun working. Initially, Lakurawa members have been herdsmen who would carry rifles for defense.
They fashioned an organised armed group after native leaders in rural communities of Gudu and Tangaza, in Nigeria’s Sokoto State, invited them to assist sort out armed bandits who have been then raiding communities for cash and cattle, and who helped immediate a kidnapping crisis in Nigeria.
Distant communities within the nation are sometimes ungoverned as a result of inadequacies of the nation’s native and state governments, permitting crime to thrive. The native leaders in Sokoto needed Lakurawa fighters to battle the bandits and shield the communities.
Lakurawa members have been capable of dislodge the bandit risk between 2016 and 2017 and have been paid for his or her work. Nonetheless, the group’s members quickly turned on communities, too. They fell out with one of many native leaders who had invited them and murdered him.
Most Lakurawa fighters are believed to be between 18 and 50 and converse Fulfulde, Hausa, and Arabic, in line with the suppose tank, Nigerian Institute of Worldwide Affairs. Fulfulde is primarily spoken by the Fulani group whose members are unfold throughout West Africa.
The Nigerian navy stated it had recognized a few of the group’s leaders: Abu Khadijah, Abdulrahaman (Idi), Dadi Gumba, Muhammed Abu, Usman Shehu, Abu Yusuf, Musa Walia, Ibrahim Suyaka, Ba Sulhu, and Idris Taklakse.
What do they need?
In its announcement in November, the Nigerian navy stated Lakurawa’s motivation or ideology is unknown.
Nonetheless, researchers who’ve spoken to communities affected by the violence say the group promotes its personal model of Islam and needs to hunt a caliphate.
In areas they govern, the group is believed to have imposed its personal model of Islamic regulation.
What have they achieved?
Members of Lakurawa have been attacking villages in Nigeria and Niger. They’re believed to carry territory in a number of villages, the place in addition they impose taxes on cattle.
As a tactic to draw extra followers and achieve native assist, the group is alleged to be distributing cash, farm instruments, fertiliser, seeds, and water pumping machines to needy locals. Some estimates put financial compensation for brand spanking new recruits at 1 million naira ($645), and about 10,000 naira ($6) for native informants.
Villagers who don’t cooperate with the group’s management face threats and assaults. Lakurawa-related violence has left dozens lifeless. In one of many newest assaults on November 9, the group’s raid on the Mera group in Nigeria’s Kebbi State left 15 folks lifeless.
How is Nigeria responding?
Tensions between Nigeria and Niger have hindered a joint and built-in response to Lakurawa and given the group some leeway.
Niger’s navy seized energy in July 2023, however Nigeria, the present chief of the Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc, has taken a tough line with the navy, asking for it to return the nation to civilian rule and free detained former President Mohamed Bazoum.
Earlier than Niger’s 2023 coup, each international locations’ armies maintained joint border patrol operations. That motion is believed to have helped disperse the group in 2020.
Nonetheless, amid the tensions that adopted the coup, joint operations between the 2 international locations have been disrupted. Authorities in Nigeria say that was about the identical time the group’s members re-grouped and commenced attacking communities once more, profiting from the safety vacuum as relations broke down additional. Joint border patrols have since resumed.
In late 2024, Nigeria launched operations towards the group. The navy has performed air strikes on targets believed to be Lakurawa members within the northern states affected, and floor assaults on the group’s camps.
Nigeria’s navy acknowledged in December that it mistakenly killed 10 civilians after an air strike on the group’s munition hideout within the villages of Gidan Bisa and Gidan Runtuwa, Sokoto State, precipitated secondary explosions. The villages have been a excessive focus for the group, a military spokesperson stated.
What about Niger?
Niger’s authorities has not revealed whether or not it has performed particular operations concentrating on the group, and it’s unclear what elements of Niger are affected.
In an interview with native reporters in December, navy chief Basic Abdourahamane Tchiani blamed the group’s emergence on Nigeria and stated Abuja and France have been sponsoring the group to assault Niger.
The nation, a former colony of France, has fallen out with Paris over the 2023 coup. Equally, Mali and Burkina Faso, that are additionally dominated by navy governments, have fallen out with their former colonial chief, France.
Since, French President Emmanuel Macron has gotten nearer to Nigeria’s chief, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, resulting in the previous allies accusing Abuja of colluding with their enemy.
Tchianni, in a December interview, stated prime Nigerian officers, together with President Tinubu’s safety adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, have been a part of a plan to maintain armed fighters in border communities as a way to assault Niger.
“He is aware of about this however he has stored silent,” Tchiani stated.
The Nigerian authorities denied the allegations, saying they have been “within the realm of creativeness”.
