Two African extremist movements affiliated with the Islamic State group could become a major threat on the continent if they come together and boost cooperation, US experts warned.
For now, Libyan Muslim militants that have proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram in Nigeria have traded little more than praise over the Internet, along with probably some fighters and weapons.
Boko Haram has recently renamed itself the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP).
However, if they change gears they could become a true regional danger, the experts warned.
“They could decide that instead of fighting to achieve their immediate local objectives, they decided to shift their focus and go after Western interests,” said Michael Shurkin, a former CIA analyst and specialist on central Africa at Rand Corp.
“For instance, Boko Haram attacking the French soldiers of [Operation] Barkhane, or the Americans in Cameroon,” he added. Operation Barkhane refers to a French anti-terror operation in the Sahel region of central Africa.
“We can easily imagine really terrible scenarios, but I don’t think we are there yet,” he added.
“For instance the shift between Boko Haram and IS in west Africa looks like a rebranding, a marketing tool, but it could be a real transition to a kind of global jihad agenda,” he said.
Movements that are geographically isolated can benefit greatly from adopting the initials, rhetoric and symbols of the most feared Muslim extremist group in the world.
The Islamic State has been able to hold broad swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, maintain an army, blow up a Russian airliner over Egypt and inspire attacks on civilians from Paris to London to California.
Mainly, it could enable the African groups to recruit foreign fighters seduced by the reputation of the Islamic State, international affairs think tank Atlantic Council Africa specialist Peter Pham said.
The numbers are still tiny, but there are indications that the flow of fighters toward Africa has already begun, with two young French people arrested last month in Tunisia while trying to reach zones controlled by the Islamic State in Libya.
In the April edition of its magazine Dabiq, published online in English, the Islamic State called on volunteers to consider joining Boko Haram “if you can’t join the caliphate,” Pham said.
Allegiance to the Islamic State has also allowed the Nigerian group, whose six-year insurgency has claimed 17,000 lives, to receive advice on military tactics.
“[Boko Haram] attacks are more coordinated,” Pham told reporters.
The latest Boko Haram videos are of professional quality and carry the insignia of the Islamic State, which boasts communications specialists who can put propaganda films worthy of Hollywood on the Internet, Pham added.
In Libya, groups that have professed loyalty to the Islamic State have expanded rapidly, going from 200 to 2,000 members over the past year, he added.
Their growing power, fueled by the political and security chaos that exists in Libya after the downfall of late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, has European authorities worried to the extent they have started flying reconnaissance airplanes over their bases.
Jamestown Foundation Muslim extremist groups specialist Jacob Zenn said ties between Boko Haram and Islamic State militants could soon evolve from the sphere of communications toward seeing Boko Haram people trained in Libya.
“If Libya becomes a hub to sub-Saharan Africa, as al-Raqqah [in Syria] is to other parts of the world, then in 2016 or 2017, ISWAP could also carry out a new type of attacks in Nigeria or west Africa under the training and coordination of IS in Libya,” he added. Al-Raqqah is the de facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria.
Like other experts, Zenn believes that tighter control by Turkey of its border with Syria or setbacks for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq could encourage would-be global extremists — who number in the thousands — to turn to Africa as a battlefront.
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