A Description of MMPI-2-RF Profile of Eleven Boko Haram Terrorists

Nigeria, the largest country on the continent of Africa, has been fighting wars with the proclaimed terrorist group Boko Haram. Currently, Boko Haram has between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters; most documentation about them is either a position paper or a situation review. There is scanty data on the personality and psychological assessment of Boko Haram terrorists using a standardized self-report inventory. Hence, this study aims to describe and explore the profile of the Boko Haram suspects on all the scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form. Eleven respondents were purposefully recruited because they were the only ones incarcerated at the ‘Kiri-kiri’ Prison facility at the time of this research. Their scores on the inventory were descriptively analyzed. More of these terrorists endorsed significant scores or symptoms of emotional/internalizing dysfunction (EID), somatic complaints (RC1), antisocial behavior (RC4), ideas of persecution (RC6), gastrointestinal complaints (GIC), neurological complaints (NUC), suicidal/death ideation (SUI), anxiety (AXY), shyness (SHY), and disaffiliativeness (DSF), while elevated scores or severe symptoms were reported on stress/worry (STW) and psychoticism (PSYC-r). This research provides personality and psychological assessments of Boko Haram terrorists for the first time using MMPI-2-RF, though it is limited by sample size. Therefore, a larger sample size may be needed for further studies and the ability to make inferences and generalizations

ISLAMIST TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS IN AFRICA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF AL-SHABAAB AND BOKO HARAM

Terrorist activities have eroded the stability, development, and security of a growing number of African states. The objective of this thesis is to better understand the terrorist groups Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab based on their strengths and weaknesses, and to identify their vulnerabilities in order to deduce their resilience to counterterrorism measures. The study also aims to shed light on the applied countermeasures. For this purpose, comparative case studies of two terrorist groups in Africa are presented, based on the available unclassified literature. The thesis adopts a qualitative approach to examine key elements of their organizational structures, ideologies, activities, and methods of recruitment and funding. In addition, the current counterterrorism efforts used on the African continent and their effectiveness are assessed. The thesis identifies the exploitable vulnerabilities of the terrorist organizations as well as the ways in which they adapt in response to existing counterterrorism measures. Furthermore, it considers the relationship between centralized vs. decentralized organizational structures in the groups’ resilience to countermeasures. Based on the findings, it is clear that purely military approaches do not bring lasting solutions and need to be at least complemented by holistic measures. As such, the study is aimed at involved counterterrorism entities, the military, and scholars to improve the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies and measures.Oberstleutnant, German ArmyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Uncovering the internal structure of Boko Haram through its mobility patterns

Boko Haram has caused nearly 40,000 casualties in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, becoming one of the deadliest Jihadist organisations in recent history. At its current rate, Boko Haram takes part in more than two events each day, taking the lives of nearly 11 people daily. Yet, little is known concerning Boko Haram’s internal structure, organisation, and its mobility. Here, we propose a novel technique to uncover the internal structure of Boko Haram based on the sequence of events in which the terrorist group takes part. Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) gives the location and time of nearly 3,800 events in which Boko Haram has been involved since the organisation became violent 10 years ago. Using this dataset, we build an algorithm to detect the fragmentation of Boko Haram into multiple cells, assuming that travel costs and reduced familiarity with unknown locations limit the mobility of individual cells. Our results suggest that the terrorist group has a very high level of fragmentation and consists of at least 50–60 separate cells. Our methodology enables us to detect periods of time during which Boko Haram exhibits exceptionally high levels of fragmentation, and identify a number of key routes frequently travelled by separate cells of Boko Haram where military interventions could be concentrated

A geopolítica do Sahel: terrorismo e conflitos securitários no Mali e no Chade

O presente estudo procura analisar o conceito de Estado falhado tendo em consideração a relação entre o Estado no Sahel, os grupos pastoralistas e a estratégia do grupos terroristas islamistas da região. Partindo do pressuposto que os conflitos armados no continente africano não são monocausais, primeiramente procura-se entender os processos democráticos da década de noventa do seculo XX, bem como o papel da denominada comunidade Internacional face à construção dos Estado no Sahel. Os processos de descentralização e as respostas face aos desafios pastoralismo em África no âmbito das alterações climáticas e as repostas face aos constrangimentos acrescidos. Argumenta-se que o conceito de Estado falhado, não pode ser aplicado aos Estados do Sahel, visto que os elementos constitutivos do conceito do Estado falhado partem de uma visão puramente ocidental do mesmo, não reconhecendo as componentes pan-africanistas que caracterizam os Estados na região e as trajetorias particulares dos mesmos. Por sua vez, é reconhecido o impacto das alterações climáticas sobre os grupos pastoralistas e a forte ligação entre os recursos e as estratégias terroristas islamistas, focando a atenção para as duas áreas transfronteiriças de Liptako-Gourma e a Bacia do Lago Chade, bem como a importância geoestratégica das mesmas. O estudo abrange assim a literatura relativa ao processo de construção do Estado e as teorias africanistas sobre o mesmo, o contexto estrutural novo o Mali e o Chade, bem como as suas dinâmicas internas no processo de construção do Estado em África e as suas ligações com os grupos pastoralistas. Se num primeiro momento, o Chade e o Mali não parecem mostrar uma ligação significativa, as respostas dadas pelas Organizações Internacionais (OIs) e Organizações Regionais (ORs) face à crise entre 2010-2021 no Sahel coloca os problemas dos dois Estados sob uma nova perspetiva

An Initial Framework Assessing the Safety of Complex Systems

Trabajo presentado en la Conference on Complex Systems, celebrada online del 7 al 11 de diciembre de 2020.Atmospheric blocking events, that is large-scale nearly stationary atmospheric pressure patterns, are often associated with extreme weather in the mid-latitudes, such as heat waves and cold spells which have significant consequences on ecosystems, human health and economy. The high impact of blocking events has motivated numerous studies. However, there is not yet a comprehensive theory explaining their onset, maintenance and decay and their numerical prediction remains a challenge. In recent years, a number of studies have successfully employed complex network descriptions of fluid transport to characterize dynamical patterns in geophysical flows. The aim of the current work is to investigate the potential of so called Lagrangian flow networks for the detection and perhaps forecasting of atmospheric blocking events. The network is constructed by associating nodes to regions of the atmosphere and establishing links based on the flux of material between these nodes during a given time interval. One can then use effective tools and metrics developed in the context of graph theory to explore the atmospheric flow properties. In particular, Ser-Giacomi et al. [1] showed how optimal paths in a Lagrangian flow network highlight distinctive circulation patterns associated with atmospheric blocking events. We extend these results by studying the behavior of selected network measures (such as degree, entropy and harmonic closeness centrality)at the onset of and during blocking situations, demonstrating their ability to trace the spatio-temporal characteristics of these events.This research was conducted as part of the CAFE (Climate Advanced Forecasting of sub-seasonal Extremes) Innovative Training Network which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 813844