The AP quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on ISIS accepting Boko Haram’s pledge of allegiance and how this could lead to more foreign fighters traveling to Nigeria:
J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, noted the Islamic State group’s quick acceptance of Boko Haram’s allegiance and said that the bond highlights a new risk.
“Militants finding it increasingly harder to get to Syria and Iraq may choose instead to go to northeastern Nigeria and internationalize that conflict,” Pham wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
In the past — as was the case with IS affiliates in Egypt, Yemen and Libya — it took weeks for the Islamic State to respond to a pledge of allegiance.
“The prompt — one might even say ‘fast-tracked’ — acceptance by the so-called Islamic State of Boko Haram’s pledge of allegiance” underscores that both needed the propaganda boost from the affiliation, Pham added.