The AP quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on how Boko Haram’s pledge of allegiance to ISIS could internationalize the crisis in Nigeria:
But “over time this pledge of allegiance might lead to the internationalization” of a threat that until now has been mostly confined to a single region of Nigeria with occasional spillover into neighboring countries, warned J. Peter Pham, director of the Washington-based Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.
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A partnership with IS could also be a recruiting tool. Fighters from IS franchises in North Africa who find it harder to migrate to the Middle East may choose to move to a Boko Haram emirate instead, Pham said.
The international support pouring into anti-Boko Haram forces from the United States, France, theUnited Kingdom and others “may render the Nigerian militants’ fight all the more attractive to these foreign jihadists,” Pham said.