Boko Haram pledges allegiance to ISIS. Yahoo/AP

Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau. Yahoo/AP.

Nigeria's Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to ISIS. Yahoo/AP. The group's leader, Abubakar Shekau released an audio message on twitter announcing the news. The groups now considers ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the Caliph of the Muslim faith. The announcement comes on the heels of pitched battles and terrorist attacks in Nigeria. 5 bombings by the group killed 54 people and wounded 143. Boko Haram fighters are also massing in the town of Gwoza in anticipation of a battle between Boko Haram and an international force lead by the country of Chad. Boko Haram controls a large portion of Nigeria and rules their territory with an iron fist. They have also begun to release ISIS style beheading videos and are increasing their presence on Twitter and other social media. 

My Comment:

This is, of course, bad news. Though I doubt there will be any coordination between ISIS and Boko Haram, the fact still remains that ISIS is now so popular that other Islamic groups are falling into line with them. Boko Haram is by far the largest of these groups but they are not the only one. Other groups, centered in places like Egypt, Algeria and Mali have also sworn their allegiance to ISIS. These groups, along with the territory controlled by ISIS in Syria, Iraq and Libya and Boko Haram in Nigeria means that radical Islamist control hundreds of miles of territory and the fates of millions of citizens living in those areas. 

But, as I said before, I doubt that there will be much in the way of cooperation between ISIS and Boko Haram. Indeed, I'm not sure that ISIS will even want Boko Haram under their flag. I've heard rumors that ISIS's leadership is rather racist and does not like Africans. That could be true but it is also possible that it is just propaganda as well. Plus there is the fact that there is a large geographical distance between Nigeria and any ISIS held territory. Boko Haram is a long way from Iraq and Syria and even Libya is pretty far away. 

This new allegiance may be more of a propaganda move then anything else. By swearing allegiance to ISIS they may gain recruits that admire the organization. Plus they get to associate themselves with the success that ISIS has had in recent months. The new videos and online presence tells me that Boko Haram has seen what ISIS does works and that by imitating them they can gain more recruits and support. It is more then a little disturbing that one of the things they are imitating is the execution of prisoners via beheading.

So what is going to happen to Boko Haram? Well, the international force, lead by Chad and other African nations seems to be having some success against them. But will that be enough? Probably not. What is needed is Western intervention, but nobody in the west cares about Africa. Indeed, my posts about Boko Haram consistently get lest views then pretty much any other kind of post. In short, Africans killing Africans is nothing new, and the Islamic angle just isn't enough to get people interested in the conflict. Given how successful Boko Haram is and the fact that they have pretty much the same ideology as ISIS this is a very bad thing.