Nigeria Outpaces Iraq in IS Attacks, Says Report

Bennett Oghifo

Nigeria has outpaced Iraq as the country with the highest number of attacks by the Islamic State (IS).

This is contained in a new report by Jihad Analytics, a company whose Chief Executive and Founder is a consultant specialising in global and cyber jihad, open-source intelligence and data, according to its website.

Jihad Analytics’ report says Nigeria has recorded a total of 162 IS operations since January 2022, while Iraq has recorded 120.

The report says half of the attacks claimed by IS since the beginning of 2022 were in Africa, with the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), an affiliate of IS, now more active in Nigeria.

“Since the beginning of the year, the Islamic State has conducted half of its attacks in #Africa,” the company said in a tweet yesterday.

“For the first time in the history of the jihadi group, Iraq is no longer the country where #IS claims the highest number of operations: the group #ISWAP is now more active in Nigeria.”

ISWAP, since it broke out of Boko Haram, has been terrorising Nigeria’s North-east.

Attacks by insurgents have resulted in the killing of thousands, while over two million people have been displaced in the region.

In March, Nigeria ranked 6th on the 2022 global terrorism index (GTI).  The GTI, published by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), an independent and non-profit think tank, said Nigeria, Syria and Somalia were the only countries among the 10 most impacted by terrorism to record an improvement in score from 2020 to 2021.

The ranking was viewed as a relative improvement as Nigeria dropped two places from the fourth position, where it had been since 2017.

The GTI report said the death of Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram, and efforts of the government to improve security contributed to factors that led to the decline of Boko Haram activities in Nigeria.

“Given the demise of their leader, Shekau’s followers were faced with the decision to either continue Shekau’s ideology or join ISWA. It has been reported that as many as former Boko Haram commanders have joined ISWA after Shekau’s death,” the report reads. “Attacks by ISWA as well as counter-terrorism efforts by the Nigerian government and foreign military forces have significantly weakened Boko Haram’s impact in Nigeria.”