As exclusively forecast, Nigeria's Boko Haram on August 25, 2014, declared that it now ruled an "Islamic Caliphate" in areas over which it has tenuous control in Borno and Yobe states in north-eastern Nigeria. The move has thrown down a gauntlet to the Nigerian Government and military, which will need to respond quickly if it is not to be a factor in the February 2015 Presidential elections. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau made the claim that he now presided over the new "Islamic caliphate" in a video released to congratulate his fighters for earlier in the month seizing Gwoza, in Eastern Borno state, near the border of Adamawa state. The town had a population of some 265,000 - the biggest population town to have been overrun by Boko Haram - before its residents began fleeing. The move followed a pattern by the pseudo-Islamist group of copying what appeared to be popular and iconic examples set by disparate jihadist groups in the Middle East and Northern Tier, from al-Qaida to the Taliban, and more lately to what has become known as the Islamic Caliphate, in northern Syria and Iraq.
展开▼
