In one of the most lethal urban attacks of early 2012, Boko Haram insurgents launched a coordinated assault on the Maiduguri Monday Market, the largest commercial hub in the city. Gunmen arrived in several vehicles, hurling improvised explosive devices (IEDs) into crowded trading areas before opening fire indiscriminately with assault rifles. The attack targeted the heart of the city's economic life during peak trading hours.
20 Feb 2012 · Monday Market (Post Office Area), Maiduguri, Borno
Deaths
30
Kidnapped
0
Total casualties
30
Perpetrators
Boko Haram
Response
The Joint Task Force (JTF) engaged in a fierce gunbattle with the fleeing insurgents. In the aftermath, the military imposed a total ban on vehicle movement within a 1km radius of the market, and the "Borno Elders Forum" issued a rare, scathing condemnation of the group’s targeting of fellow Muslims and locals.
Displacement
0
Socioeconomic drivers
Spreading fear, punishing communities, demonstrating insurgent reach in Maiduguri.
Trajectory
The 20 February attack was part of a wave of reprisal killings that defined this phase of the insurgency. Just weeks earlier, on 5 February, the group had threatened to kill anyone collaborating with the military. The market attack was the bloody enforcement of that threat, targeting civilians who had previously handed over a suspected sect member. The shift from attacking security forces to targeting civilians for “collaboration” marked a dangerous intensification of the group’s campaign of intimidation. This phase of “collaborator killings” and market massacres would continue throughout 2012 and 2013.
Cycle notes
The Baga market massacre continued a grim cycle of market attacks that began in April 2011 and would be repeated throughout the insurgency. On 30 April 2011, a Boko Haram bombing at a drinking spot near the market killed five; in July 2011, another attack on the market killed three. The scale of the February 2012 assault was unprecedented at the time, but it would be eclipsed by even bloodier market massacres in the coming years—notably the April 2014 Nyanya motor park bombing (75 killed), the December 2014 Maiduguri market bombings (40 killed), and the May 2015 Baga market bombing (over 40 killed). The pattern of targeting the commercial heart of a city—economic sabotage as a weapon of terror—would become a staple of Boko Haram’s campaign against civilian populations.
Pattern
Mass-Casualty Civilian Attacks — insurgents target markets, bus stations, and public gatherings.
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