In countries around the world, campaigns against terrorism have largely focused on the hard challenges of security, employing intelligence services and specialized military and police units to take the lead. But to complement those efforts, counter-terror strategies also look at the root causes of radicalization itself. Security services have tried community engagement and monitoring of religious groups—and in some cases governments have even encouraged weddings to bring alienated young men back into the fold. Now, Muslim elders in northern Nigeria are testing that tactic on a massive scale. Leaders in Kano—the second largest metropolitan area in Nigeria with about 2.8 million people—are helping to fund mass weddings to counter a plethora of single women and prevent the radicalization of young men. The effort is spearheaded by the Kano State Hizbah Board, the bureau that implements Islamic law in the state. According to the Wall Street Journal, 1,350 couples in Kano have been married in mass weddings in the past year and a half; more than a thousand more are scheduled to be married, and there is a waiting list with 5,000 people. There are economic incentives: the state gives grooms $60 to pay a dowry and brides get some supplies for the home and money to start a business. In many cases, couples come together and apply to get married, but the government will also play matchmaker, asking a man or woman what they desire in a spouse, then helping to track down a suitable candidate. The Journal reports that thousands of women in a nearby state asked to be fixed up with husbands. "When you have a good wife," Nabahan Usman, deputy commander of special services at the Kano State Hizbah Board told the Journal, "why should you think of going for terrorism?" Leaders in Kano are turning to mass marriage to help stem the violence from an ongoing struggle between police and government forces and a group known as Boko Haram (which is Arabic for "Western education is forbidden"), a radical jihadist group with al-Qaeda ties operating in northern Nigeria. Since(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=111173&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Source: Brides Before Bombs: Nigerian City Fights Terrorism With Mass Weddings (http://world.time.com/2013/10/23/brides-before-bombs-nigerian-city-fights-terrorism-with-mass-weddings/)