Boko Haram insurgency insurgency spread to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger thus becoming a major regional conflict. In 2015, a coalition offensive forced Boko Haram to retreat into the Sambisa Forest. The insurgency took place within the context of long-standing issues of religious violence between Nigeria's Muslim and Christian communities. Boko Haram has been called the world's deadliest terrorist group, in terms of the number of people it has killed. Nigeria was amalgamated both the Northern and Southern protectorate in 1914, only about a decade after the defeat of the Sokoto Caliphate and other Islamic states by the British which were to constitute
Boko Haram of Borno State Ali Modu Sheriff, who initially supported Boko Haram, but no longer needed them after the 2007 elections and stopped funding them. Sheriff denies the accusations. Boko Haram's attacks consist of suicide bombers as well as conventional armed assaults on both civilian and military targets. Following the 2014 kidnapping, a majority of Boko Haram's suicide bombers are female; some are as young as seven years old. Boko Haram jihadists rely on stealth, blending into local communities or hiding in the vast countryside. Critics accuse the Nigerian military of not properly equipping its soldiers to fight Boko Haram. In