Nigeria Puts Fortress Towns at Heart of New Boko Haram Strategy

Nigeria Puts Fortress Towns at Heart of New Boko Haram Strategy
Zainab Bukar, an internally displaced person living in Bama camp, Nigeria, poses for a picture in her shelter November 23, 2017. Picture taken November 23, 2017. Reuters/Paul Carsten
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BAMA, Nigeria—Nigeria’s government has a plan for the northeast, torn apart by eight years of conflict with Boko Haram: displaced people will be housed in fortified garrison towns, ringed by farms, with the rest of the countryside effectively left to fend for itself.

The vision for the state of Borno, ground zero for the war with the Islamist insurgency, is a stark admission of the reality in the northeast.