Quote Originally Posted by KingJaja View Post
Now Boko Haram is destroying schools in Northern Nigeria. COIN experts, what does this point to?
Jaja, This is not my primary area of expertise, but it is an area that I am responsible for when performing post blast and reporting to law enforcement (as a means of supporting preventative or awareness training to the general public).

Destroying infrastructure (be it criminals or terrorists) is intended to disrupt, incapacitate and/or have an impact on security. protecting physical assets means tons of cooperation between the government and private sectors. Not that easy to do.

Preventative measures means that the Nigerians adapt a more dynamic process (more awareness and preparedness for all) which translates into simply being more prepared and ready to counter adversity. In a word, make BH's targets hard similar to what the police stations and churches have now accomplished. What that has done is made the BH focus on softer and less secure targets. Security is little more than making "this" so difficult that your opponent moves on to something easier (that you have yet to think of).

The entire picture is now called Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, and Information (PMESII) which the USG uses to gauge the operational environment and create a plan of attack before the attack comes to be.

BH is merely identifying single points of failure in the hopes of crippling larger systems. Going after schools is not exactly what most would have assumed to be logical. They have not gone after agriculture, food and water which are abundant and very easy targets. But then, they have no intent on leaving Nigeria, so they are less likely to attack the very logistical system they need to survive. Really odd Sierra !

Quote Originally Posted by KingJaja View Post
Should the Nigerian Army organise safe villages in the North (ala Malay insurgency)? But even if they try, 60,000 troops isn't enough to make it happen.

Are we on the road to Kinshasa - the government safely enclosed within Abuja while the rest of the country falls apart?
In your home town a "Kinshasa" won't work - the infrastructure is too good. We are back to anticipating their next moves and hardening obvious critical targets. I still recommend people start using the FBI assets in country. The BH acts (of terrorism if you wish to call it that) are very similar to organized crime. They have obviously done their homework and figured out that police stations and churches are hard targets and they incur fatalities.