with them a new message. Rather than sowing afresh the terror they
have brought to swathes of north-east Nigeria by opening fire, the
jihadists insisted they were here to stay and residents would not be
harmed.
For Nigerians who have died in their thousands at the hands of Boko
Haram's Islamist insurgents, such assurances were always going to be
treated as hollow lies. Scores fled and today officials said the
reality was that many in Gulak were killed in the weekend attack.
As Michael Kirshinga, a resident of the strategically important
settlement, put it: "They assured us that they will not attack us, but
people began to run for their lives. Some of us have fled for fear
that, after subduing the soldiers, the insurgents will turn their gun
barrels on us."
The attack on Gulak may have ultimately conformed to Boko Haram's
grimly familiar modus operandi of spreading panic and spilling blood
with murderous raids, bombings and beheadings.
But the attempt to persuade its victims that it meant no harm and the
raising of jihadist flags over the township was the latest evidence of
a new - and yet more chilling - direction in Boko Haram's five-year
campaign to bring havoc to Africa's most populous nation.
The group earlier this year succeeded in monopolising global attention
- and outrage - when it kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls from the
village of Chibok in April, 200 of who remain missing.
But while the West has since concentrated its focus on the "caliphate"
or religious fiefdom declared by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
(Isis) in Iraq and Syria, a similar announcement by Boko Haram's
leader Abubakar Shekau - and a series of territorial gains - has
passed largely unremarked outside Nigeria.
As the insurrection which began in 2009 this weekend seized yet more
towns along Nigeria's border with Cameroon and tightened its grip on
large parts of its native Borno state, experts said Boko Haram was
metamorphosing from a guerrilla movement once confined to the bush and
mountain caves into a force capable of holding onto its gains.
When his fighters last month took the town of Gwoza in Borno,
murdering inhabitants and again raising its jihadist flags, Shekau
released a video in which he declared the area was "now part of the
Islamic Caliphate". He added that Gwoza now had "nothing to do with
Nigeria".
Scholars warned last week that Boko Haram, whose name translates
colloquially as "Western education is sin" and which began life in
2002 as a movement to reject concepts such as evolution and big bang
theory, was on the verge of ending government control across almost
the entire state of Borno and establishing its cherished aim of a
caliphate.
Intelligence agencies are concerned that what were once symbolic links
between Isis and Boko Haram have now developed into a practical
relationship with the Islamic State offering advice on strategy and
tactics.
Emboldened by the success of Isis and now seemingly armed with
armoured vehicles and artillery, observers said Boko Haram was
beginning to operate more like a conventional army in Borno and the
neighbouring north-eastern states of Adamawa and Yobe.
The Nigeria Security Network, a coalition of security experts and
academics, said: "Unless swift action is taken, Nigeria could be
facing a rapid takeover of a large area of its territory reminiscent
of Isis's lightning advances in Iraq."
The nature of the threat was further underlined on Monday when a
senior politician in Borno admitted that civil life in the state, home
to three million people, has all but ground to a halt.
Alhaji Baba Ahmad Jidda, secretary to the Borno state government,
said: "At this very moment, most parts of Borno state are being
occupied by Boko Haram insurgents. Government presence and
administration is minimal or non-existent across many parts of the
state, with economic, commercial and social services totally subdued.
Schools and clinics remain closed. Most settlements in the affected
areas in the state have either been deserted or access to them is
practically impossible."
He added: "The threat to security of lives and property as a result of
the criminal activities of the Boko Haram insurgents is everywhere."
The capture of the strategic Borno town of Bama - since disputed by
the Nigerian authorities - has raised concern that the state capital,
Maiduguri, where Boko Haram was founded and long one of its key
targets, will be next to come under sustained attack.
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