Who are Nigeria's Boko Haram?

New Delhi: Boko Haram, the group of militant extremists in Nigeria, have grabbed headlines in the past week thanks to their brazen kidnapping of 275 girls, aged between 16 and 18, from a boarding school in the town of Chibok on April 14.This militant Islamist group has caused havoc in Africa's most populous country through a wave of bombings, assassinations and abductions. They are fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.Boko Haram's rampage of indiscriminate violence and tyranny has been going on for over three years now.Boko Haram was created in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeastern state of Borno, by Islamist cleric Mohammed Yusuf, who led a group of radical Islamist youth in the 1990s. The group aims to establish a fully Islamic state in Nigeria, including the implementation of criminal sharia courts across the country. The sect calls itself Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati Wal-Jihad, or “people committed to the propagation of the prophet's teachings and jihad,” widely known as Boko Haram.In July 2009, Boko Haram members refused to follow a motorbike helmet law, leading to heavy-handed police tactics that set off an armed uprising in the northern state of Bauchi and spread into the states of Borno, Yobe, and Kano. The incident was suppressed by the army and left more than eight hundred dead. It also led to the televised execution of Yusuf, as well as the deaths of his father-in-law and other sect members, which human rights advocates consider to be extrajudicial killings. In the aftermath of the 2009 unrest, “an Islamist insurrection under a splintered leadership” emerged. Boko Haram carried out a number of suicide bombings and assassinations, from Maiduguri to Abuja, and staged a prison break in Bauchi, freeing more than seven hundred inmates in 2010.In 2010, the US designated it a terrorist organisation, amid fears that it had developed links with other militant groups, such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, to wage a global jihad.Attacks continued to escalate, and by 2013 some analysts began to see greater influence by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Boko Haram operations.Amid growing concern about the escalating violence, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in May 2013 in the three northern states where Boko Haram is the strongest - Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.The conflicts have left around 90,000 people displaced. Human Rights Watch states that Boko Haram uses child soldiers, including 12-year-olds.