If the leader of Boko Haram is a fool (and there is little doubt about this), how he would have been able to plan the kidnapping of 276 Christian female students and how he could manage to manage a group of nearly two thousand people in tow considering his guerrillas ?
But are we really sure that there is no one else hiding behind Boko Haram? There is an old motto, also used in films that reads: "The brain believes, what the eye sees". What the whole world has seen (and therefore believes) is that Abubakar Shekau is the uncontested leader of a group of Islamic extremists who hates the West with all the classic repertoire of the character in camouflage. But the whole affair cannot have been orchestrated by a simple madman. We are not talking about a classic raid inside a building, with terrorists taking hostages and asking for ransom.
The Nigerian episode shows lucidity, planning, strategy. The very fact of using one of the most dangerous forests in the world as a refuge, says a lot about premeditation. The Boko Harams do not seem to act like the West Side Boys or Aidid's Somali troops. The West Side Boys found themselves confronting the British overwhelmed with alcohol and drugs in their practically open-air villages, while Aidid's troops were a clear example of an "armed crowd".
The Boko Haram, day after day, seem to act differently. The modus operandi, the technique of hit and run, the choice of objectives and the ability to disappear among the trees and snakes of the Sambisa forest, denote a coordination and a planning that certainly cannot be the fruit of a deviated mind like that of Shekau.
Probably, the leader of Boko Haram is a puppet, wisely used to confuse and deceive. It is true, on the internet there are some videos showing Nigerian guerrillas setting fire to old (now unusable) government jets, celebrating and exulting almost as if they were feasting on the body of a dead dragon.
But what if this scene was part of the plan?
If this theory is confirmed, then the West must begin to keep its eyes open. Because if Shekau were only the actor chosen to frighten (?) The West, who is hiding in the control room?
Does the world still have to know the real enemy?
Information is scarce, despite the fact that we know day after day about the basics of Western secret services in virtually all of Africa or about programs that have ended because they are out of control (as in Libya). We know that Boko Haram manages some training camps with the Al Qaeda groups in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and of Al Shabab in Somalia. Shekau is close to Al Qaeda, but would not be officially affiliated with the terrorist organization.
According to the latest Boko Haram theory, fundamentalists would have kidnapped Nigerian female students to show the world they exist and to attract economic resources to invest in their criminal activities. Shekau would be filming an immense and bloody "promo" of his group to obtain proselytes and funds from the warlords scattered around the world. But if this were indeed the case, then coincidences would become clues, as it would not be the first isolated case in Africa.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb last year carried out an attack on a gas plant in Algeria. The action brought back the leader of the group Mokhtar Belmokhar, also known by the nickname of Mr Malboro. The latter, however, unlike Shekau (of which we ignore practically everything, but it is certainly not a genius of evil) has made its bones with the mujaheddin and has a purely military background. But we have the same striking operation, with totally different figures. We have the same ability to shake the world. This is the main theme of the operations carried out so far.
But we still work on brainstorming. We exclude the main figures, taking as reference only the actions of terrorists. By eliminating context and enemy, the goal is the same: to make oneself known to the world, in the hope of attracting proselytes and funds to invest.
Who is hiding behind the Boko Haram?
Franco Iacch
