The news filtered through some seven years ago that Boko Haram would be forgiven, upon wilful surrender, with certain rewards. The gambit died at first, overwhelmed by criticism and opposition but was brought forward in 2015, when a new government came to power.

President Buhari: ‘This Country Has Suffered Enough of Hostility’

“This country has suffered enough of hostility,” President Muhammadu Buhari told reporters in March 2018, after a back channel negotiation that led to the release of 107 of the 111 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Dapchi, Yobe State in northeast Nigeria. “The government is ever ready to accept the unconditional laying down of arms by any member of the Boko Haram group. We are ready to rehabilitate and integrate such repentant members into the larger society,” Buhari added.

In the months that followed, camps were built in the three most impacted north-eastern states of Gombe, Adamawa and Borno. The so-called Operation Safe Corridor, (OPSC), involved keeping insurgents in camps for months, teaching them new skills, moderating their religious ideology and then sending them back into the society. So far, figures collated from multiple media reports show that over 2000 ex-insurgents have benefited from the government amnesty.

Unfair Reward for Vicious Murderers

Five years later, opposition against the government amnesty is growing, especially among the communities where the insurgents were once members. There is also anger from security experts and wives of killed military officers. These groups lost wives, husbands and witnessed the burning their homes, mosques, and churches.

The memories that still linger years after now hurt afresh when the insurgents who are at the center of these tragedies return to the society – free from justice, paid compensation and forgiven. Amnesty, wasn’t the choice of the people most impacted by Boko Haram’s vicious violence, nor were they consulted about whether this approach was acceptable to them. This, in part, makes returnees isolated – if not vulnerable to retaliatory aggression from obviously unhealed host communities.

Is Boko Haram Gaming the Amnesty System?

Some security experts also suggest that the risk is high as amnesty for a powerful group like Boko Haram can be too fragile to generate guarantees. Boko Haram could be tactically sending members to spy government plans, gather information and return for deadlier operations. They argue, for example, that ideologies that drive terrorism are deep and exceedingly tough to erase on a short term. In fact, doing so would require much more than Nigeria’s present approach to work, experts argue.

Meanwhile, the government was barely so kind to the survivors of the insurgency as to the perpetrators. While rehabilitation camps for the insurgents are richly furnished, United Nations estimates that over 7 million people still need emergency assistance in Nigeria. Since the start of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009, armed group seeking to impose Islamic governance upon Nigeria – Africa’s largest country, it is estimated that around 35, 000 persons have died to terror attacks, while 2.3 million people remain displaced from their homes and communities.

‘They Should Be Punished Like Any Other Criminal’

Last month, ex-military officers and widows of military officers who lost their lives fighting terrorists in Nigeria protested the release of the insurgents, suggesting that the government was betraying the sacrifices of their husbands.

“They (terrorists) should face justice. You know they are involved in the killing and maiming of soldiers. So, whenever they are arrested, they should be punished like any other criminal,” Mrs/ Edith Opesanmi, the National Vice President of the Military Widows Association, told local press. “We widows feel bad about it. Our husbands go to fight these terrorists and keep dying. The number of widows is increasing daily.”

The Wrong Time to Forgive

 While some security experts admit that amnesty will be necessary at some point, they also suggest that timing and context could make a difference between merited and underserved amnesty.

In Pakistan, for example, Ehsanullah Ehsan, the Taliban terrorist key figure who in 2012 shot Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai for campaigning for female education in Swat Valley, earned amnesty only after he surrendered in 2017. Reports suggested terms of his pardon included offering secret tips to security agents about the inner workings of the Taliban.

Boko Haram, though broken into factors, is still powerful and killed about 30 persons in Maiduguri – the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency only two days after the release of another batch of 1,400 supposedly repentant insurgents.

Figures from the US-based think tank Institute for Economics and Peace show that 2018 deaths from terrorism in Nigeria rose to 2,040 in 2018, a 33 per cent increase despite an overall 89 per cent decline from their peak in 2014.

Amnesty: the Unwanted Solution

Careful attention to security and a clear sense of justice are key to amnesty. It must begin with a thoughtful separation of extremists through a transitional justice system mindful of the fact that some terrorists were possibly forcefully recruited while others operated in largely non-violent roles such as cooks, drivers, sex slaves, wives and cleaners. Nonetheless, many were fanatical murderers and amnesty is the last thing they should receive.

In countries where amnesty currently applied in various shades like Iraq, Somalia and Pakistan, traces of justice mingle with mercy. But considering Nigeria’s peculiar situation with Boko Haram: expanding front lines, emerging new factions, abuse of due process, lack of support for survivors, recent deadly offensives and terrible war crimes against millions of Nigerians and other West African neighbors, Boko Haram at the moment is neither deserving or ready for amnesty.

L'articolo Nigeria’s Controversial Boko Haram Amnesty proviene da InsideOver.

Shocking numbers have been revealed regarding the overall total bulk of foreign terrorists and radical fighters who have entered Syria trying to topple the government over the past eight and a half years of conflict. The staggering toll of foreign belligerents explains the complexities of the Syrian war and why it has gone for so long, as well as the exceptionally high human, economic and territorial cost it has inflicted upon the country.

Frightening Figures of Terror Mongers

Figures of Jihadis and other militants who flooded into Syria through Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon but mainly over the 900 km border shared with Turkey have varied throughout the years of the conflict, ranging between 200,000 and 300,000 militants coming from over 80 countries spanning all the way from China, through Asia, Africa, Europe to the United States. Those estimates and origins of terrorists killed or captured by the Syrian army and its allies reveal a horrifying story and a conspiracy that amounts to a mini world war against Syria. The numbers do not include the uninvited formal foreign forces and soldiers – mainly Turkish and American – who operate and control vast sways of Syrian land.

A document adopted by the United Nations sets the total number of terrorists who have infiltrated into Syria at a massive 171,400. 51,910 of whom were killed at the hands of the Syrian army, and 33,847 went missing, were arrested or escaped the war as government forces regained most of the cities, towns, villages and areas that had been under rebel control for years.

At the worst stage in the conflict, some 70% of Syrian territories were completely or partially out of government control, including whole cities and large towns in the southern parts of the country. This included strategically located suburbs of the capital Damascus, all the way up north and northwest covering hundreds of miles as well as the majority of Syria’s oil and natural gas fields and installations, along with the country’s two strategic and largest dams of Al Tabqa and Tishreen on the Euphrates river.

Numbers, Nationalities and Fate

The UN-adopted document states that among the largest contributors to the anti-government armed campaign in Syria was Saudi Arabia with 24500 Jihadi men and women; 5990 of whom were killed in the fighting, including 19 women while another 2700 have gone missing. The rest are still actively involved in running and funding terror groups, such as al Nusra’s supreme leader and mentor Abdullah al Muheisni. Al Nusra changed its name into HTS (Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham) after it was officially classified as a terrorist organization, and is the Syria version of al Qaeda international terror base.

Unsurprisingly, Turkey tops the list with a staggering figure of 25800 terrorists; 5760 were killed by the Syrian army while 380 others are reported missing.  Chechnya came close with 21000 fanatic Jihadis; 5230 of whom were killed in the war, including 16 women. Chechen fighters are considered among the most veteran and tough terrorist operating in Syria, especially in forest and rugged mountainous areas along the coastal city of Latakia’s borders with Turkey. Those indoctrinated Jihadis have formed their own battalions and led some of the fiercest battles and attacks against both army and civilian targets.

Messengers of Pan-Arab Death

As aforementioned, the Saudis were prime contributors to the terror-mongering effort in Syria, but even war-torn and troubled Arab nations such as Libya, Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and even Lebanon have sent an average of 10000 terrorists each, almost one third of whom were killed in action and thousands went missing over the past 8 years of Syrian conflict. Libyan fighters, like their Tunisian comrades-in-terror, have been extremely brutal in atrocities they have perpetrated against Syrian soldiers and civilians alike.

One stark example was that of the 14000 Palestinian terrorists, mainly from the Islamic Hamas Movement, once stationed and led from Damascus before it switched ranks and moved to Qatar. They appear to have completely ignored or forgotten about their national cause of an independent Palestinian State, and instead headed for Syria killing their fellow Arab kens and historical supporters. 4920 Palestinian fanatics were killed in confrontations with the Syrian army. A similar story applies to other Arab fundamentalist who left their national cause and headed for the Syrian killing spree, in the name of the false democracy they know nothing about.

No Short Supply of Non-Arab Hire Guns

Turkmen terrorists totaled 8600; 3050 were killed in action, including 11 women, and 900 went missing. Turkmen militants brought their families along, settled and opened schools of their own mainly in Hama, Idlib and Latakia countryside.

An average 4000 figure was given to terrorists and fatality rate regarding those who came from countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan among other Asian nations.

The UN-adopted document states that a massive chunk of 30000 terrorists joined the Jihad in Syria came from western Europe, Scandinavia and other western nations. The nationalities included the US, France, Britain, Belgium, Russia, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway.

Islamic fanatic Jihadis who had managed to hide in the west or flee from the Syrian conflict have committed a series of heinous terror attacks in a number of European and western nations, including some of their own national countries, mainly France, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Reciprocal terror attacks against Muslims ensued in countries as far as in the US and New Zealand.

Terror is a cosmopolitan cancer that has to be obliterated; it has no religion, nationality nor boundaries. Syria has been at the forefront fighting terrorism on behalf of the whole world. It is high time all civilized nations and major world powers join in efforts to put an end to this vicious circle of violence and blood-shed that threatens the future of humanity at large.

L'articolo Figures And Fate Of Foreign Fighters In Syria proviene da InsideOver.