According to the government, over 15,000 Boko Haram militants had surrendered to the military by November 2021 ( The Guardian, 12 November 2021). Following his death, dozens of JAS faction fighters pledged allegiance to ISWAP ( Reuters, 28 June 2021), while thousands surrendered to military forces in the subsequent months ( New York Times, 23 September 2021 ). In May, Abubakar Shekau, the JAS faction leader, was killed during fighting with ISWAP militants in Sambisa Forest, reportedly by detonating his suicide vest ( BBC News, 7 June 2021 ). In 2021, clashes escalated between Boko Haram (JAS) 1 Jamaatu Ahli is-Sunnah lid-Dawati wal-Jihad and its splinter faction, ISWAP Lake Chad, in a rivalry over supremacy and control of territory in northeast Nigeria and around Lake Chad. While ACLED records an overall decrease in the number of events involving Islamist militants in 2021 relative to 2020, there was still a significant spike in militant activity, and violence has persisted and continued to evolve. His government has failed to do so, however ( BBC News, 12 June 2021 ), with Islamist militants linked to more than 18% of all organized political violence in the country last year. In 2015, when Muhammadu Buhari was elected as the new Nigerian president, he pledged to put an end to the Boko Haram insurgency ( New York Times, 14 April 2015 ). The threat posed by Islamist militants in the northeast shifted in 2021 and persisted, despite ongoing military operations to counter the insurgency, with the Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP) Lake Chad faction gaining more power and influence ( New York Times, 15 October 2021 ). The violence resulted in over 9,900 reported fatalities, nearly a 30% increase compared to 2020. During 2021, ACLED records a 22% increase in the number of organized political violence events in Nigeria. While a long-running Islamist insurgency and ongoing militia activity, often labeled as ‘banditry,’ continue to impact the northern regions, the Biafra separatist rebellion has been a cause of unrest in the south. Nigeria continues to confront multiple security threats across its territory, with insecurity deepening in northern and southern parts of the country.
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