Defense One quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on the evolution of Boko Haram and what the US Department of Defense can do to assist the Nigerian military:
“What has come together is a ‘perfect storm’ of security threats,” said Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, testifying Tuesday before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Pham listed Boko Haram’s continuing insurgency and terrorist attacks to neighboring countries beyond Nigeria, the possibly millions displaced by the conflict, and the economic pressure created by the falling price of oil.
“It’s Boko Haram version 3.0,” Pham told Defense One. “It’s a group that’s gone from being a violent extremist group, to a terrorist group carrying out attacks, suicide bombings and other acts of violence, to full-fledged insurgency, occupying territory, trying to set up a mini-government, a mini-caliphate of its own.”