ISIS may show “affinity” with Boko Haram, said the official, “but they stop short of allegiance.” Moreover, said the official, while Boko Haram has in the past year released videos to show “affiliation” with groups like ISIS, there’s no evidence of either group sending members to fight with the other. And while Boko Haram has praised ISIS, and shown the ISIS flag in videos, ISIS has not reciprocated.
“There are still questions of the ISIS view of Boko Haram and Nigeria,” said the official. “But Boko Haram does not operate in sync with ISIS. The caliphates are separate.” There was concern last October when Boko Haram declared its caliphate that the two might team up, but there’s no indication that’s happening, said the official.
The groups differ in many ways. Both use social media, but the ISIS campaign is much more sophisticated – using more than 20 languages — and attempts to communicate the Islamic rationale for its operations. Boko Haram posts increasingly slick videos on the web, like one released Tuesday that threatens the leaders of Cameroon, Benin and Chad, but its prime recruiting tool is older and simpler than social media. “Boko Haram,” said one official, “uses fear.”
The governance of their respective caliphates also differs. ISIS attempts to replace the bureaucracies it found in conquered territories with its own, while Boko Haram has been satisfied simply taking over villages and cities and establishing Sharia courts that mete out rough justice.
ISIS has more “hardcore” soldiers than Boko Haram — about 26,000 to 31,000 compared to 4,000 to 6,000. ISIS is also more attractive to foreign fighters, with an estimated 2,700 Westerners having fought for the group. Intelligence officials say that other than a few fighters who’ve crossed the border into Nigeria from Cameroon, Chad and Niger, the numbers of foreign fighters in Boko Haram are negligible. There’s no evidence, they say, of any North Americans or Europeans fighting in Nigeria.
as willing to accept help from western powers. The newspaper warned that election postponement might increase the level of insecurity rather than reduce it and that Nigeria’s democracy would not survive an electoral crisis
But even if there is no link beyond shared values between the groups, ISIS may be a role model for Boko Haram, said Michael Sheehan, chairman of the Countering Terrorism Center at West Point. He said he’s “not sure” Boko Haram would’ve “gone the caliphate route” if ISIS hadn’t done so first.
“Each of them has been successful, reinforcing their own optimism, and that’s not insignificant,” said Sheehan.
And there is little difference in the level of violence perpetrated by the groups. An intelligence official told NBC News that many of the attacks and atrocities carried out by the Nigerian group have not been publicly reported.
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