Boko Haram: taking liberties
In the aftermath of Boko Haram’s audacious kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls, John Chisholm examines the group’s history and ambitions, and asks how they can be stopped
The April 2014 kidnapping of an entire class of girls by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria has propelled the organisation into the global consciousness. Public figures as lofty as Michelle Obama held up cards demanding “Bring back our girls”, and a group that had not been widely known outside West Africa and the security community became international news. But Boko Haram is, even by the standards of Islamic fundamentalists, a . . .
