AP
\nJihadi fighters who had long operated in Africa\u2019s volatile Sahel region have settled in northwestern Nigeria after crossing from neighboring Benin, a report said Wednesday, the latest trend in the militants\u2019 movements to wealthier West African coastal nations.
\nThe extremists believed to be linked to al-Qaida have in the last year crossed over from Benin\u2019s hard-hit northern region and settled in Kainji Lake National Park, one of Nigeria\u2019s largest, where other armed groups have also gained access, according to the report by the Clingendael Institute think tank, which has done extensive research in the Sahel.
\nResidents close to the park told The Associated Press that the facility, which holds one of West Africa\u2019s fast-declining lion populations, has been closed for more than a year because of security threats from armed groups attacking neighboring villages and roads.
\n\u201cBefore, it was like a tourism center (but) now, people find it difficult to pass through there,\u201d said John Yerima, who lives near the park in New Bussa town. \u201cYou cannot enter that road (leading to the park) now. It is dangerous, seriously.\u201d
\nThe security situation at the 5,300-square kilometer (2,000-square mile) park in Niger state and along the nearby border with Benin is \u201cgetting out of hand\u201d and is \u201ca much more explosive situation than we had anticipated,\u201d said Kars de Bruijne, one of the authors of the report and a senior research fellow at the institute.
\nThe \u201csustained presence\u201d of the armed groups in the park is the first sign of a connection between Nigeria\u2019s homegrown extremists that have launched a decadelong insurgency in its northern region, and al-Qaida-linked militants from the Sahel, the vast arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert, Bruijne said.
\nTheir presence offers an opportunity for the extremists to claim large-scale success in both countries, already wracked by deadly attacks in recent years, he added.
\nThere are also concerns from conservationists that the presence of armed groups in the park could further threaten the remaining lions whose populations have declined as a result of poaching and climate change. They say the park and most protected wildlife areas in Nigeria are poorly patrolled, making them easy targets for armed groups.
\n\u201cThe security situation has become top of the list when it comes to the concerns about the lion populations in Nigeria,\u201d said Stella Egbe, senior conservation manager at the Nigerian Conservation Foundation.
\nThe Nigerian military often conducts aerial bombardments and deploys its personnel in criminal hideouts in the conflict-battered northern region. However, security forces \u2014 fatigued by the decadelong war in the northeast \u2014 are still outnumbered and outgunned in those remote villages, and the root causes of the conflict such as poverty remain.
\nThe Clingendael report said it is unclear what the motive of the Sahel extremists in the park is and what their relationship with other armed groups there will be. Security analysts say it offers opportunities for logistics and more influence amid booming illegal trade across the porous border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AP Jihadi fighters who had long operated in Africa\u2019s volatile Sahel region have settled in northwestern Nigeria after crossing from neighboring Benin, a report said Wednesday, the latest trend in the militants\u2019 movements to wealthier West African coastal nations. The extremists believed to be linked to al-Qaida have in the last year crossed over from …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25733,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25725\/revisions\/25733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}