ISWAP’s Strategic Resurgence in Nigeria Signals Emerging Trends in Insurgents’ Sophistication and Limited Statehood

Introduction

The security situation in northeastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin significantly deteriorated in the first half of 2025. This is primarily owed to the renewed strategic vigor of the dreadful Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a splinter of the infamous Boko Haram terrorist network, and a Salafi-jihadist militant group and administrative division of the Islamic State. For over a decade now, the northeastern region of Nigeria, and by extension, the Lake Chad Basin, has been the epicenter of transnational terrorism, resulting in thousands of fatalities, the destruction of millions of dollars’ worth of property and livelihood, and the displacement of millions of people now experiencing unimaginable human insecurities in the region.

Unlike Boko Haram, ISWAP’s emergence in 2015 signaled a frightening new dimension in the operations, scale, and sustainability of terrorism in the region, anchored on an ingenuine but sophisticated insurgent governance model. This governance model was built on two operational pillars of strategic violence and the provision of social services to local communities. That is, the group, according to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index report, “focuses on targeting state and military assets while attempting to win local support by providing limited services, such as distributing food and protecting the local population.”

ISWAP’s rise to strategic dominance in the terror landscape in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin Region has been occasioned by an intractable increase in both terror attacks and fatalities recorded. For instance, a Global Terrorism Index report has it that 2020 witnessed the first massive peak in the activity of the group with a recorded 482 deaths, while it recorded 288 deaths in 2023, and what seemed to have been a decline in 2024 with 40 recorded attacks resulting in 158 deaths. But this seeming reduction in incidents and fatalities didn’t last long. The resurgence of ISWAP in the first half of 2025 has led to over 300 attacks on military formations, critical national infrastructure, humanitarian facilities, and communities, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people.

However, the decade-long ambition for a viable counterterrorism and counterinsurgency (CTCOIN) strategy by the Nigerian state and the regional Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) has, at least, become seemingly impotent in combating the escalating surge of ISWAP insurgency since the beginning of 2025. These failures have become more pronounced, as evidenced by significant coordinated attacks on military bases and strategic infrastructure across the northeastern region, including victories in Buni Gari, Marte, Wulgo, Wajiroko, Sabon Gari, and 10 other locations. What, then, accounts for ISWAP’s recent strategic vigor?

I argue in this article that ISWAP’s operational robustness and confidence suggest two broad categories of factors that recalibrate the complex resurgence of the existential terror threat in the region. These include the evolving level of ISWAP tactical sophistication and adaptability, as well as the multiplex systemic dysfunction of the CTCOIN strategy and the prevailing geopolitical dilemmas in the Sahel region.

Figure 1: Attacks and deaths by ISWAP, 2017-2024

Source: IEP; Global Terrorism Index 2025

Evolving ISWAP Tactical Sophistication and Adaptability

      1. ISWAP Governance Model

ISWAP’s recent tactical offensives on military bases and critical infrastructure across the region, most of which went unchallenged, recorded several equipment losses and deaths of persons, including soldiers. But to grasp the context of these operational successes, we must first understand ISWAP’s strategic philosophy and governance model, which constitutes the reason for its split from the disproportionately violent and ideologically ultra-charged Boko Haram network in 2015. ISWAP operates as a pseudo-state (a form of ISIS’s ambition of insurgent-to-state transformation) in its area of operation, with clearly defined strategic objectives: acquiring territories and ensuring sustainable control over them.

Against this backdrop, therefore, the group’s first tactical move was to gain control and social legitimacy from the local population, exploiting tactics that engineer rural radicalism. To begin with, ISWAP, led by its leader, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, launched a large-scale offensive on Boko Haram in the quest for strategic dominance. This led to the death of Boko Haram’s infamous leader, Abubakar Shekau. While this tactical operation seemed to have gained new strongholds and combatants for ISWAP, it was, on the other hand, misconstrued by the state to mean the intra-network decimation of national and regional security advantages. Furthermore, unlike Boko Haram, which engages in indiscriminate violence against the local population, ISWAP has deployed strategic violence, mostly on state targets, while negotiating “fragile” peace deals with local communities, filling governance gaps by providing food, health services, and implementing its own jihadist-based education system. The group also encourages farmers and fishermen to return to their businesses after paying protection taxes, called jizya, within its area of operation. Ironically, reports indicate that the group earns approximately $191 million annually from jizya and other illicit economies, which is 10 times higher than the Borno State Government’s annual internal revenue earnings for the 2024 fiscal year.

      2. ISWAP “Terrology”: Sophistication and Adaptation in Technology-Enabled Terrorism

ISWAP has demonstrated its evolution in strategy, acquisitions, and skills, integrating terror into an era of rapid technological innovation. The group has become more sophisticated and highly adaptable to modern warfare capabilities. Like a pseudo-state, which it portrays itself as, the group has demonstrated an incredible ability to acquire and utilize emerging satellite technologies, weaponized drones, artificial intelligence-enabled financial platforms for fundraising, and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). Without a doubt, the application of these technologies in its recent offensive attacks on military bases in the region reveals a frightening new dimension. This signals the possibilities of extreme lethality, adaptability, and resilience of the insurgent group. With these emerging technologies at its disposal, the group’s strategic capability in intelligence gathering, sabotage operations, and strategic offensive can be extensively catastrophic and rarely deterred.

Furthermore, ISWAP’s digital capability in strategic narrative warfare, radicalization, and online extremism, through digital platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok livestreams, and the use of electronic device hacking, presents a dangerous posture for the vast young population in the digital age. Sadly, this comes on the heels of a Nigerian State that is not just nascent in technology adaptation in military transformation, but which is significantly limited in the capacity to enforce algorithm governance of terrorist and extremist digital content.

      3. Influx of Critical Foreign Fighters

Indeed, another factor that has profoundly strengthened ISWAP in its recent strategic offensive, reshaping its battlefield dynamics, has been the influx of foreign fighters. Reports indicate that there has been an influx of foreign jihadists, primarily from Arab countries, into the ranks of ISWAP, including combatants and expert tactical instructors. Malik Samuel, a researcher at Good Governance Africa-Nigeria, suggests that, undoubtedly, “the formal arrival and publicized participation of Arab foreign fighters may represent a deliberate attempt to internationalize the conflict, extending its reach beyond the Lake Chad Basin and the Sahel.” The implication of this strategic shift by ISWAP signals a well-calibrated move in transforming itself into a central pillar of the Islamic State’s global strategy in Africa. Therefore, there is no doubt that the combination of these internal group dynamics has significantly contributed to the sharp rise in terrorism and insurgency incidents over the first half of 2025, with an overall recorded number of attacks at 341, of which ISWAP accounts for 300.

Figure 2: Monthly incidents of terrorism and insurgency in Nigeria, January – July 2025

Source: Partners for Peace – Peace Map 2025

Complex Systemic Dysfunction of CTCOIN and Geopolitical Dilemmas

      1. Limited Statehood

We can argue that ISWAP’s internal strategic reorganization and sophistication have accounted for a substantial battlefield advantage over state forces in recent months, but this doesn’t present a complete picture of the insurgents’ strategic leverage. Like most insurgencies that fester on the wings of state fragility, ISWAP’s recent campaign of terror aimed at demoralizing and degrading state forces and critical national security infrastructure underscores the broader challenge of systemic dysfunction and limited statehood. Despite Nigeria’s efforts in the last 25 years of its return to democracy to consolidate its democratic principles and good governance, the country has remain profoundly lacking in the capacity to provide substantial and sustainable public service. It also lacks the capacity to ensure human rights and rule of law, address group grievances and demographic pressures, and protect the vast majority of its citizens or territory or gain extensive state legitimacy. This lack of state capacity, also known as limited statehood, is evident in the country’s ranking of 15^th out of 178 countries, with a fragility score of 96.6 in the Fund for Peace’s 2024 Fragile States Index. Hence, ISWAP is exploiting the multiplex dynamics of the socio-political, economic, demographic, and institutional challenges bedeviling Nigeria for strategic leverage to advance the campaign of terror in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin.

      2. Lack of CTCOIN Coordination and Rivalry

Although Nigeria’s 2016 National Counterterrorism Strategy (NACTEST) envisions a robust strategic insight into the nation’s efforts, built on multi-stakeholder and intelligence-led CTCOIN operations, it has recorded limited operational and tactical successes. These failures have exposed the state’s vulnerabilities to exploitation by insurgents in a profoundly significant manner. One major reason is attributed to poor coordination of the CTCOIN strategy. The blurry strategic line of sight among the nation’s CTCOIN forces and security agencies undermines the potency of interoperability needed for effective counterterrorism operations.

The decade-long experience of Nigeria’s CTCOIN operations has revealed significant missteps occasioned by inter-agency rivalries, inadequate intelligence sharing, a lack of equipment, and epileptic CTCOIN strategies. For instance, the failures of the “super camp” strategy have created an opportunity for ISWAP to establish strategic dominance in rural areas, thereby gaining necessary social legitimacy. Force offensive or clearance operations have also been highly epileptic and frailly episodic. The lack of capability to ensure sustained offensive operations has instead made the country’s CTCOIN campaign more defensive. Arguably, most offensive operations carried out by the security forces in recent times have signaled an act of political expediency rather than a well-calibrated, sustainable counterterrorism and countering violent extremism (CTCVE) agenda. Sadly, beyond the security agencies’ dilemma, the other core component of the NACTEST, which includes policing, civil agencies, and community engagement, has been underutilized either through sheer negligence or sabotage. The challenges persist due to stakeholders’ inability to fulfill their roles. Such challenges include border security, a multitude of out-of-school children in the northeast, high poverty levels, an inability to contain violent ideology, and the inability of the judicial system to prosecute captured ISWAP members. All these factors intersect to give ISWAP the strategic advantage they have enjoyed in recent months.

      3. Complacency and Corruption in CTCOIN Operations

In recent times, we have also witnessed a high rate and propensity of complacency and corruption in CTCOIN operations. There have been incidents of shift in loyalty, criminal sabotage, and outright theft of equipment by belligerent soldiers. For instance, in May 2025, the Nigerian Military reported that troops of Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK)’s covert unit – Operation Snowball, achieved significant results in apprehending complacent and corrupt officers. Operation Snowball, which is an internal operational framework within the larger CTCOIN’s OPHK designed to ensure accountability in the frontline, was launched in August 2024 to target ammunition racketeering in the theatre. Consequently, over an extensive period in multiple operations across 11 states including Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Ebonyi, Lagos, Plateau, Kaduna amongst others, the operation was able to record the arrest of 18 serving soldiers and 15 police officers for allegedly selling arms to terrorist and other criminal elements.

This obnoxious twist only compounds the decade-long criminal economy that has continued to undermine the nation’s CTCOIN efforts. The lack of accountability among sector commanders has also led to the demoralization of the fighting force, resulting in desertion, as well as challenges in recruitment and retention. On the one hand, the numerous incidents of lack of capacity and criminal sabotage have led to a total loss of confidence and trust among local communities, who are often exploited and taken advantage of. This scenario has made ISWAP push a detrimental narrative as a credible and just alternative to a corrupt Nigerian State.

      4. Limited State Capacity in Emerging Warfare Technologies

Furthermore, amid these systemic shortfalls lies the challenge of limited institutional capability to contain the acquisition and use of digital technologies in irregular warfare. Principally, while the state has improved its capacity in drone technology, much is yet to be done to achieve substantial results in utilizing counter-drone technologies or the deployment of artificial intelligence-enabled and machine learning platforms to ensure effective algorithm governance of terrorist and extremist digital content.

      5. Geopolitical Dilemma in the Sahel

Lastly, ISWAP has exploited the geopolitical dilemma in the Sahel region occasioned by the Niger coup. The wave of coups in the Sahelian region, especially that of Niger in 2023, has created a significant void in the strategic intelligence gap and deleterious fragmentation of the Lake Chad Basin regional CTCOIN architecture—the MNJTF. Consequently, political and diplomatic tensions, loss of trust, and coordination in the region have emboldened ISWAP and exacerbated the spate of wanton terrorism witnessed in recent months in the region.

Concluding Remarks

The challenges in curbing ISWAP, and other insurgents and terrorist networks in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin region are multiple and enormously complex. Regardless, the Nigerian military, in the wake of recent sporadic attacks on military bases in June 2025, commenced the reorganization of the theater. The reorganization effort includes, among others, postings of new commanders, the rotation of troops, sanctions on complacent commanders, and injection of new equipment. Furthermore, the military, in an effort to boast operational and tactical advantage, commenced the prioritization of offensive operations in the theater, initiation of counter drone training, intensified the hunt for all equipment carted away, and operationalized the joint defense doctrine, which is commendable. But, without the needed commitment and operationalization of the whole-of-society approach embedded in good governance and sustainable human security, ISWAP may continue its campaign of terror unabated. The country needs to reemphasize its strategic line of sight, recognizing that the national CTCOIN operation is not only for the security forces, but a war that all Nigerians must fight, led by a patriotic and uncompromising political will of the government.

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