Nigeria: Boko Haram Has Been Crushed

The Boko Haram extremist group has finally been crushed—driven from its last forest enclave with fighters on the run and no place to hide, Nigeria's president declared Saturday. Despite President Muhammadu Buhari's victorious announcement, Nigeria is unlikely to see an end soon to the deadly suicide bombings, village attacks, and assaults on remote military outposts in northeastern Nigeria carried out by the country's homegrown Islamic extremist group, the AP reports. Already, there are reports that the insurgents have been regrouping in Taraba and Bauchi states, south of their northeastern stronghold in Borno state, and taking advantage of a decades-old conflict in central Nigeria between mainly Muslim nomadic cattle herders and sedentary Christian farmers.

In a statement, Buhari commended Nigerian troops for "finally entering and crushing the remnants of the Boko Haram insurgents at Camp Zero," which is located deep within the heart of Sambisa Forest. He announced the "long-awaited and most gratifying news of the final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave" and declared "the terrorists are on the run, and no longer have a place to hide." The Sambisa Forest was where Boko Haram was believed to be holding some of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in April 2014 from a school in the town of Chibok. Further efforts should be intensified to locate and free our remaining Chibok girls still in captivity. May God be with them," Buhari said. Some 197 of the women and girls remain missing, though one of them made it to freedom last month. (More Boko Haram stories.)