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GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR ASSESSMENT OF STATE RESPONSES TO TERRORISM AND INSURGENCY IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

A fundamental responsibility of the state is the security of the life and property of its citizens. Others include the protection of its territoriality and sovereignty and the guarantying of its socio-economic and political stability. However, since the mid-twentieth century, this protective function of the state, its sovereignty and territoriality, as well as the economy have been under threat due to the upsurge in militant Islamism and globalisation of terrorism. This threat has been propelled by the emergence and rise of “Violent Non-State Actors” (VNSAs) (Williams, 2008:1), who have taken advantage of the instruments and process of globalisation to carry out ferocious attacks on citizens, institutions and critical infrastructure of the state. Although terrorism with its negative consequences dates back to pre-historic time, otherwise referred to as “antiquity” (Chaliand and Blin, 2007:79), its prevalence and escalation have been accentuated in the twenty-first century, especially since the September 11, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in the United States by the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. That attack has been followed by many similar attacks in Africa, Asia, Europe, and other parts of the world. As at December 2015, a total of nine terrorist attacks have occurred in the United States since September 11, 2001 including the December 2015 Inland Regional Centre attack in San Bernardino, California described as “horrific acts”, during which Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed 14 persons and injured 17 others (Khomami, 2015). Across Asia and Europe, the lists of major terrorist attacks since September 2001 include the October 12, 2002 car bomb in the Indonesian holiday island of Bali that killed 202 persons, the March 11, 2004 coordinated bomb attacks on four Spanish commuter trains in Madrid that killed 191 persons, the September 1, 2004 massacre of 330 persons (mostly women and children) by Islamist terrorist group in Beslan, North Ossetia, an autonomous Russian Republic, the July 7, 2005 coordinated attacks by suicide bombers on London subway trains and buses that killed 52 commuters, the November 26, 2008 60-hour siege by 10 militants from Pakistan in Mumbai, India that killed 166 persons, the May 24, 2014 murder of four men at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels, by Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national with ties to Islamic State, the December 16, 2015 massacre at a military-run school in north-western Pakistan that killed 148 persons by Taliban gunmen, the January 7, 2015 killing of 17 persons at Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the July 20, 2015 suicide bombing in a Kurdish border town, Turkey that killed 31 persons, the October 10, 2015 twin suicide bombing that killed 95 persons in Ankara, Turkey, the November 12, 2015 double suicide bombing in a Beirut suburb that killed 43 persons, and the November 13, 2015 series of coordinated attacks that killed 129 persons in Paris, France (Wall Street Journal, 2015). In Africa, however, terrorism-related violence dates back to the late 1990s. On August 7, 1998, two massive bombs simultaneously exploded outside the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 224 people and injuring 5,000 others. Responsibility was quickly traced to Al-Qaeda. Four years afterwards, Al-Qaeda operatives struck again, killing 15 people in an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa, Kenya, and simultaneously fired missiles at an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Mombasa airport (Lyman and Morrison, 2004:1). However, since September 11, 2001, the continent, has, experienced significant increase in planned and actual attacks by terrorist networks. Weak domestic security, governance failure, porous borders, proliferation of weapons from destabilised countries in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and globalisation have provided terrorist groups the leeway to carryout audacious attacks in Africa including Nigeria (Onuoha, 2012).

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