[WSJ] Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
said it appointed a new leader for Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
, in a sign that the Nigerian Islamist insurgency is retooling under the command of its Middle Eastern counterpart.
Sheik Abu Mossab al Bornawi
| ...could that be Mohammed Usman, (or possibly, as he was identified in another article in our archive, "Barnawi, 47, whose real name is Usman Umar Abubakar, hailed from Biu town in restive northeast Borno state") also known as Khalid Al-Barnawi alias Kafuri, Naziru, Alhaji Yahaya, Mallam Dauda, and Alhaji Tanimu? But he was arrested by the Nigerian authorities in April... |
Boko Haram declared loyalty to Islamic State in 2015, and Mr. al Bornawi told al Naba, Islamic State’s weekly newsletter in a Tuesday article that the two groups have decided "to fight and unite under one umbrella."
| I wonder if something was removed from the article in rewrite. Mr. al Bornawi until now was a leader of Ansaru, formally Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan (Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa), the educated, Al Qaeda-trained splinter group that specialized in kidnapping and killing foreigners because they were much too refined to join Boko Haram in kidnapping and killing locals. They broke off from Boko Haram in 2012, back when both groups were affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa. |
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
or killed.
Tuesday’s interview speaks to a new challenge facing Africa’s largest democracy: that Islamic State is increasingly backing and supervising Nigeria’s homegrown insurgency.
"Infidel forces" have "stripped the group of some territories, which we are working on retrieving," Mr. al Bornawi said in the interview.
For months, Nigerian officials have warned that Boko Haram members are slipping into the Sahara, joining Islamic State in Libya, or for meetings in Sudan. Intelligence reports and officials in neighboring countries have supported that view, and Islamic State’s announcements from Libya have referenced several Nigerian fighters. Boko Haram, for its part, has renamed itself Islamic State West African Province.
"There is no more Boko Haram," a Nigerian counterterrorism official who works with detained forces of Evil said. "As far as they’re concerned, they consider themselves to be ISIS [Islamic State]."
The terror group’s new leader didn’t say what happened to Abubakar Shekau, the former face of Boko Haram.
It also isn’t clear if Mr. Shekau’s followers support the change in management: In his comments, the new leader seemed to suggest that Mr. Shekau had killed too many Moslems, a significant departure from the doctrine shared by Boko Haram and Islamic State, who both believe that only their supporters are true Moslems.
"I’m not confident over the long-term sustainability of this," said Jacob Zenn, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation research group in Washington, D.C. "I don’t think he has support from the Shekau factions."