Struggle for influence and control rages between ISIS and Boko Haram
After deadly clashes took place in the Nigerian state of Borno on Monday, November 21, ISIS West Africa ambushed a Boko Haram convoy, which led to a firefight that lasted about 40 minutes, killing members of the latter group.
In October, ISIS militants attacked pockets of Boko Haram, and six were reportedly killed during those attacks.
In a silent operation, ISIS militants stormed a house belonging to Boko Haram in Yobo, a town 95 km northeast of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, and slaughtered six of them.
The ISIS West Africa branch seeks to significantly develop its activities and operations during the current year in light of the operational escalation in its traditional areas of influence in northeastern Nigeria and on the borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon. This is despite the joint operations led by Nigeria in the area of Lake Chad to curb the influence of the terrorist organization there.
The most prominent observation in the operational activity of the ISIS branch, specifically in Nigeria, is the expansion of this activity outside the traditional areas of influence in the states of Borno and Yobe since the beginning of 2022 and the escalation of operational activity outside the two states starting from April 2022. This calls for examining the dimensions of this escalation in operational activity outside the group’s traditional areas of influence.
Throughout 2021 in particular, ISIS West Africa continued to adhere to a specific strategy at the level of the geographical scope of operational activity by strengthening its presence in its traditional areas of influence that were the areas of influence of the Boko Haram group, which pledged allegiance to ISIS and became ISIS West Africa Province. This was before internal disputes that led to the defection of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Shekau, and his death in clashes between the two sides in the middle of last year.
These differences had a great impact on the need for this branch to focus on consolidating its position and removing the remnants of the Boko Haram group within the framework of the struggle for influence and control. But from the beginning of 2022, within the framework of a new phase for ISIS in Africa, the West Africa Province branch began to strengthen its influence and extend its operational activity outside the geographical scope of its traditional areas of influence in the states of Borno and Yobe.
The ISIS branch turned to operational activity in the three states of Kogi, Taraba and Adamawa, according to an analysis of data of the pro-ISIS Amaq agency, which are states that come within what is known as the “Middle Belt” in Nigeria that separates the north from the south and extends through a number of from the states of Nigeria.
That region constitutes a majority of Christians, and it also witnesses great ethnic diversity, which sometimes leads to confrontations and reciprocal violence.
