The deadliest terrorist group in West Africa, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), is now in Nigeria and its mission is to set up caliphates all over West Africa.
JNIM is said to love money and always targets the rich for huge ransom to finance their operations.
The group is said to be worse than Boko Haram and ISWAP, both of which have killed thousands of Nigerians especially in the north of the country.
JNIM, described as an al-Qaida affiliate splintered from northern Mali with a mission to establish a caliphate throughout West Africa.
Africa Defence Forum reports that its entry into Nigeria further complicates matters for the Armed Forces of Nigeria, which has battled Boko Haram since 2009 along with multiple terrorist splinter groups.
Defence experts told Political Economist NG that the entry of JNIM into Nigeria is dire as the group, said to be sophisticated and brutal than any existing group in Nigeria, is capable of infiltrating and radicalizing members of others groups and introduce them to more dangerous ways of terror.
Photo: ADF
Political Economist NG recalls that the Australian government first proscribed JNIM as a terrorist organisation on 3 November 2020, a group described by Intelligence experts as high profile targeting mostly the rich whom it kidnaps for ransom, aside being deadly.
The organisation has its West Africa hub in Mali but is now active across much of West Africa, including Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo and now Nigeria.
Formed on 2 March 2017, when a coalition of allied jihadist groups operating in the Sahel region of West Africa – Ansar al-Din, the Macina Liberation Front (FLM), al-Murabitun and the Sahara Emirate subgroup of al-Qa’ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – announced they had merged into one entity under one Emir.
In September this year, they abducted an Emirati prince forcing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to pay more than $20 million to secure the freedom of the prince kidnapped by JNIM, according to news reports. Some sources had previously put the ransom figure at more than $50 million.
The kidnappers reportedly took the victim, a 78-year-old member of Dubai’s ruling family, in September during a raid of his farm south of Bamako, according to Western officials and Malian community leaders. JNIM posted footage showing the militants attacking a hangar where the victim kept his private aircraft and hang gliders, The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported. Western officials said the victim is involved in the precious metals trade out of Mali.
