Sadly but unsurprisingly, Chad’s capital N’Djamena was hit hard by two simultaneous suicide attacks on the 15th of June, 2015, killing at least 34 and injuring over 100. The targets were the central police station and the police school where two terrorists were able to enter wearing police uniforms. The group very likely behind these attacks is none other than Boko Haram, aka The Islamic State in West Africa. This marks a clear escalation and takes Boko Haram’s war directly to its enemies.
Until this terrible Monday in June, Chad had never witnessed a terror attack on its soil, while N’Djamena is only 30 miles away from Nigeria’s Borno state, Boko Haram’s stronghold. Now Boko Haram has changed this and while authorities had long been aware of its deadly potential and its will to go after Chad, it was still a shock. The day after the bloody attacks, two men were arrested in front of the central police station in N’Djamena. They were allegedly on the verge of blowing themselves up.
Boko Haram sent a strong, loud, and bloody message to Chad because N’Djamena is a doubly symbolic military target: in fact it is both the HQ of the regional anti-Boko Haram force and that of France’s regional Operation Barkhane force. In a huge commitment, in terms of costs and manpower, 5,000 Chadian soldiers have been fighting against Boko Haram since January and garnering military victories, something that the Nigerian army, with tremendously more means, could not achieve. Chad has been the most potent adversary of Boko Haram in recent months, inflicting defeat on the Islamic State affiliate, and since Boko Haram couldn’t defeat Chad’s army on ground, as expected it used suicide attacks in N’Djamena to fight an asymmetrical war.
Chad’s law enforcement did not really take the security issue lightly: for a while its borders have been tightly controlled with computerized checks at border posts with Cameroon and systematic searches of all vehicles and persons entering the country. Chadian services have also been using intelligence from local tribal leaders and the Nigerian refugee population is closely monitored.
In this asymmetrical war, the enemy can pass as a regular civilian and the message is crystal clear: Boko Haram can attack anyone, anywhere. After the attacks, Chad has banned everyone from wearing the burka, given that it is a security risk and has been used in the past by terrorists as a disguise.
While the identity of the suicide bombers has not been established yet, it is important to note that the danger could not be coming just from foreign elements but also Chadian members of Boko Haram that are much tougher to track down and could be a formidable force to face off. In fact in addition to Nigerians and Cameroonians, the group has recently integrated elements from Chad and Niger. By dismantling various Boko Haram bases, the consequence has been that various cells have dispersed in many different areas including Niger and Chad.
Boko Haram did not limit its attacks to Chad and has been targeting both Cameroon and Niger way before Chad. Interestingly enough, Cameroon, after having been a sanctuary for the group for a long while, had decided to be an active participant in military operations against the jihadists. Various terror attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram took place in the Diffa region in Niger, most notably in February when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a market and also on June 18, 2015, when it killed at least 40 civilians.
Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s leader, boasted that he was not afraid of African armies and since January Boko Haram has been intensifying attacks in neighboring countries. But in reality, Boko Haram has suffered military defeats in Chad and Niger and may have gone too far by taking on Nigeria’s neighbors. In fact, by wanting so much to build its own caliphate in the region, Boko Haram may have overstretched its capacities and will likely focus more on terror attacks from now on. Indeed, Boko Haram is a hybrid outfit: almost a regular army grabbing territory and a classical terrorist organisation. It can easily switch from one to another or follow both tactics at the same time.
Chad won’t allow for its capital and law enforcement to be targeted by Boko Haram. One can expect Chad to go even harder and more ruthlessly against the jihadist group. But that does not mean, far from it, that Boko Haram won’t be able to pull off bloody terror attacks in the whole region. This marks a change of strategy that could inspire its mother organization, the Islamic State, that has also suffered some military losses very recently.
Olivier Guitta is the Managing Director of GlobalStrat, a security and geopolitical risk consulting firm for corporations and governments. He tweets@OlivierGuitta