Nigeria’s militant Muslim group Boko Haram pledged allegiance on Saturday to the Islamic State militant group, according to an audio clip posted online.
The symbolic move highlights increased coordination between extremist movements across north Africa and the Middle East and prompted an appeal from Nigeria’s government for greater international help in tackling the Boko Haram insurgency.
Boko Haram has killed thousands and kidnapped hundreds during its six-year campaign to carve out an Islamist state in northern Nigeria. In recent months it has increased cross-border raids into Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
“We announce our allegiance to the Caliph ... and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease,” read an English-language translation of the audio broadcast in Arabic that purported to be from the Nigerian militant group.
“We call upon Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the Caliph,” it read.
The pledge of allegiance was attributed to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau.
The audio script identified the Caliph as Ibrahim ibn Awad ibn Ibrahim al-Awad al-Qurashi, who is better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State — formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — and self-proclaimed caliph of the Muslim world.
“[The audio] is confirming what we always thought. It’s sad, it’s bad,” Nigerian government spokesman Mike Omeri said. “It’s why we were appealing to the international community... Hopefully the world will wake up to the disaster unfolding here.”
Al-Baghdadi has already accepted pledges of allegiance from other groups in the Middle East, Pakistan and north Africa.
Analysts said Boko Haram’s move came as no surprise.
“Boko Haram has followed a trend that only led [us] to anticipate the release of this audio, mimicking Islamic State propaganda and approach to military methods, and calling its fighters soldiers of the Caliphate,” said Laith al-Khouri, director of the Middle East and North Africa research and jihadi threat intelligence at Flashpoint Partners. “The Islamic State, unlike al-Qaeda, did not seem to shun Shekau, it accepted his thuggish persona and lack of Islamic knowledge.”
This month, Boko Haram released a video purporting to show it beheading two men, its first online posting using advanced graphics and editing techniques similar to footage from the Islamic State.
“Boko Haram is now being elevated from a local jihadi group to an important arm of the Islamic State. With Boko Haram’s wide network in north Africa, the Islamic State’s projection of creating an Islamic Caliphate is gaining headway,” SITE Intelligence Group director Rita Katz said. “Islamic State’s infrastructure, resources and military capabilities will enable Boko Haram to expand its operations and control even faster in North Africa.”
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