At approximately 3:00 am, troops of the Joint Task Force (JTF) in Maiduguri intercepted five suspected Boko Haram members who were attempting to burn down a public primary school in the Lamisula district. The soldiers engaged the suspects, killing three of them and arresting the other two, who had been shot and wounded. A number of homemade explosives, which the suspects intended to use in setting the school ablaze, were recovered from the scene.
5 Mar 2012 · Lamisula district, Maiduguri, Borno
Deaths
3
Injured
2
Kidnapped
0
Total casualties
5
Perpetrators
State Security Actors
Response
Following the foiled attack, the military increased its presence around primary and secondary schools in Maiduguri. The JTF spokesman, Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed, confirmed the operation and the arrests.
Displacement
0
Socioeconomic drivers
Destroying secular education, spreading fear among teachers and parents, reinforcing ideological control.
Trajectory
The 5 March 2012 foiled attack was a rare tactical success for security forces in their efforts to protect educational institutions. It occurred during a surge in school arsons in early 2012, which followed the group‘s devastating “Kano Blitz” (20 January 2012, 185+ killed). According to Human Rights Watch, suspected Boko Haram members had attacked, damaged and, in a few cases, destroyed at least 12 schools in and around Maiduguri by early March 2012, forcing an estimated 10,000 pupils out of school. The successful interception of the Lamisula cell demonstrated that security forces could, with intelligence and rapid response, prevent some attacks, but the sheer number of school arsons overwhelmed the state’s ability to protect all educational facilities.
Cycle notes
The foiled arson directly echoed the 28 February 2012 burning of Gomari Costain Primary School in Maiduguri and was part of a wave of school attacks that peaked in late February and early March 2012. The pattern of nocturnal raids on public schools – often using explosives and petrol bombs – had become a signature Boko Haram tactic. The military’s successful prevention of this particular attack, however, prefigured later, more effective security measures, including the deployment of night guards to hundreds of schools and the eventual temporary closure of many educational institutions. The incident also foreshadowed the group’s later, far more brutal campaign against education, including the 2014 Chibok kidnapping
Pattern
Foiled school arson
Related — Counter-Insurgency
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