BAGA, NIGERIA – Terrorist attacks are usually very limited in scope: a few are not.
We all see 9/11 as the pinnacle of terrorism. And for good reason. Four civilian airliners hijacked and flown into three iconic US landmarks (the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon: the fourth jet that was taken over by passengers and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania was possibly headed for the White House, a fourth landmark).
In all, almost 3,000 were killed. Terrorist attacks almost NEVER kill more than a handful of innocent people. For example, in 2014 43,500 people were killed in 16,800 attacks worldwide; that works out to less than three per incident. To kill THOUSANDS was unheard of.
What if I told you that an attack in Nigeria in 2015 came close?
On this day 2015
On this day that year the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram massacred what are believed to have been more than 2,000 people in the fishing town of Baga on Lake Chad (population 300,000). Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the mass killings and threatened more violence: “We are the ones who fought the people of Baga, and we have killed them with such a killing.”
No one stayed back to count the bodies. We were all running to get out of town ahead of Boko Haram fighters.
Resident of Baga
Not surprisingly, Baga is now a ghost town. The promises of the Nigerian government notwithstanding (see upcoming Perspective on this), Boko Haram is still dominant in that region of the country.
Expect more massacres from these terrorists.
