Fostering techniques that deny the insurgents the support of big sponsors and the local populations to which they might be channelling their appeals are even bigger gains. While some communications are couched to pass a clear message, the specific objectives to be realised may be hazy especially when the psychology of the terrorist is not well factored in. That was the case in Nigeria before the new crops of military chiefs that are grounded in counter terror techniques.
According to Sun Tzu in his “Act of War”, “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skills”, and it is of supreme importance to attack the enemy’s strategies, the next being to attack his alliances. The quasi-diminishing potency of especially Daesh which have lost their strongholds in several regions led to a resultant interest in the much “prolific” Lake Chad Basin by the “greater underworld” comprising of even more ruthless and affluent groups in the Arabian Peninsula, the Maghreb and elsewhere. Some of these terrorists had actually stepped in to give various supports to the armed dissidents in the region.
It is pertinent to state that misguided state communications might have added up to streamline the directions of these alliances and supports to smaller players in the troubled Lake Chad Basin. Such communications could either rebut or consolidate the terrorists’ own communication strategies being used to woo the bigger players and gain their collaboration.
According to reports, the ISIS had stepped in to restructure the Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP), a group that broke out of Boko Haram with Al Barnawi, the son of the late Boko Haram founder, Muhammed Yusuf as the leader. During the so called restructuring, non-conformist commanders were removed and incarcerated with their loyalists. Those that escaped ran to other areas to form parallel cells where they diversified their pattern of offensives, first for financial support through kidnapping, armed robbery, cattle rustling and other forms of banditry and later to crystalise their ideology to gain better significance in the region.
Overall, the ease with which the terror groups in the region launched their offensives and the scale of atrocities committed thereby created an impression of high combat might attract more sophisticated groups in other regions. This is one reason state communications are managed to weaken the terrorists’ strengths in building external alliances.
While placing a ransom for the capture of a terrorist forms a definite step towards a clear objective, it is not clear what an ultimatum announced in the media and coming from a military commander to his soldiers to capture a terrorist leader tends to achieve, nor is it clear the aim of announcing the relocation of a military chief to the warzone and his resolve to fight on the frontline, showing his thousand push-ups and sky diving manoeuvres. If this was employed to intimidate the terrorists and shape the public perception about the military in the asymmetric warfare, one wonders if the state of such perception was ever considered should the expeditions fail or not achieve a desired result.
Feint attack in conventional warfare is a kind of psyop (psychological operation) strategically targeted at distracting the enemy or undermining their advances. However, covert operation in guerrilla warfare shielded from the public and of course, from the terrorist themselves could be prolific as a seeming celebration of survival by the terrorist where a publicised counter terror strategies failed became inevitable with Boko Haram terrorists. It was a common practice for the Boko Haram to release video footages of reprisal offensives where they used local populations as sacrificial rams in exhibiting their combat might, a show of superior fire power that saved them from a much-publicised dooms day.
This era has witnessed positive changes in counter terror strategies especially in the area of communications. Kudos to the recent Chiefs of Army Staff, the entire security apparatuses, and men on the frontline.
Elias Offor is an Abuja based legal practitioner and security analyst.
