STRIKE REPORTEDLY KILLS MILITANT LEADER
The Somali extremist group al-Shabab faced a new setback after one of its top surviving commanders was reported killed in a U.S. drone strike. U.S. officials familiar with the operation confirmed that a drone strike was launched Thursday in Somalia aimed at a key leader of the al-Qaida-linked group, but they said authorities were still trying to verify whether the suspect had been killed. Kenyan media, citing intelligence officials, reported that the strike had killed Adan Garar, a strategic commander who helped plan al-Shabab’s high-profile attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013. According to the reports, Garar was targeted while traveling in a car with two other men. Garar was a member of al-Shabab’s shura, the governing council of the group. Al-Shabab has lost a series of top commanders to U.S. drone strikes, denting the militia’s operational strength.
— Los Angeles Times
It sounds chilling: two of the world’s most powerful extremist movements, one in the Middle East and the other in Africa, team up to spread their harsh brand of Islamic rule.
The quick acceptance by the so-called Islamic State of Boko Haram’s pledge of fealty is a publicity boost, and comes at a time when both are suffering combat losses. Boko Haram militants in Nigeria and the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, 2,000 miles away, might declare joint operations, possibly using an Islamic State affiliate in chaotic Libya as a bridge to move arms and fighters. But whether they can effectively do that is very much in question.
The Islamic State group was quick to accept Boko Haram’s allegiance on Thursday, in contrast to its slower deliberation on the pledges of other militants, some of whom abandoned al-Qaida affiliates.
Boko Haram’s pledge stirred fresh debate about whether the Islamic State is extending its global reach. Nigerian extremists have been weakened recently by the multinational force and the Islamic State group is also under pressure from Iraqi troops and allied Shiite militias that have swept into the Iraqi city of Tikrit.
One analyst downplayed the idea of “any kind of organizational linkage” between Boko Haram and the Islamic State group.
“These movements are trying to outdo one another in terms of radicalization and scare tactics,” said Jakkie Cilliers, executive director of the Institute for Security Studies, based in Pretoria, South Africa.
But J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, a research center in Washington, said increasing Western assistance to the multinational African military effort against Boko Haram “make this fight all that more appealing to the Islamist extremists.”
“Militants finding it increasingly harder to get to Syria and Iraq may choose instead to go to northeastern Nigeria and internationalize that conflict,” Pham wrote in an email.
Many militants have traveled to Syria through Turkey, which has pledged tighter border controls under international pressure. On Friday, Turkey said authorities had detained 16 Indonesians who were trying to cross the border to join the Islamic State group.
Following Boko Haram’s pledge, the Nigerian government may hope for more support from the United States and other countries, said Antony Goldman, a Nigeria analyst and head of London-based firm PM Consulting. Nigerian militants, in turn, could hope for “logistics, leadership and personnel,” possibly from Libyan groups, he said.
Libya, which has an Islamic State affiliate, could provide a locale for joint training and operations planning.
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