Boko Haram kills 110 people in Nigeria.

 

Hundreds show up to mourn the dead at the funeral. The Guardian/AFP.

Boko Haram has killed 110 people in Nigeria during a massive massacre. AFP. The attack occurred in the village of Koshobe. Boko Haram targeted rice workers in their fields and slit their throats. Six people were wounded in the massacre while at least eight people are missing. Several women may also have been kidnapped. Boko Haram is an ISIS affiliate and is responsible for extreme terror attacks in Nigeria. This slaughter was the worst attack so far this year. 

My Comment:

Not a whole lot of information on this attack, other then it was brutal. When I first saw the story this morning the news reports couldn't decide on how many casualties there were, so I held off on writing the story until tonight. Not much has changed though the media seems to have settled on the 110 figure. 

This is obviously a horrible attack but not one that is unique for Boko Haram. They seem to specifically target civilians for these kinds of massacres in place of other terrorism tactics. Boko Haram rarely tries to conduct the kinds of high profile terror attacks like al-Qaeda and ISIS but instead just launch attacks like this. 

Boko Haram also kidnapped people, though I don't think it will be for ransom. Boko Haram has ransomed people for money before but given that the people taken were poor and women my guess is that they were taken for other reasons. Boko Haram and ISIS have a long history of kidnapping women for sex slavery or as wives and I wouldn't be surprised if that is what happened here. 

As for Nigeria, they need to do more to protect their people. If they don't have the troops to secure their villages they should allow their people to arm themselves. Though there probably would have been casualties it's possible that Boko Haram could have been beaten back and if not they could have at least bought some time to get the non-combatants out. 

Though Boko Haram is still a major threat I don't think they are a global one. They haven't really attacked outside of Africa so I don't see them taking up the banner of global Jihad from ISIS. Indeed, ISIS never really embraced Boko Haram that much, largely because they are racist against black people, even as they proclaim that they are not.