The Growing War Between ISIS and Boko Haram

The Growing War Between ISIS and Boko Haram

By Hailey Lawrence

Abubakar Shekau, former Boko Haram leader

After shocking the world with their allegiance, the world's deadliest terror groups, ISIS and Boko Haram, might be in the most dramatic break-up in history over the value of each other's morals.

After having Boko Haram pledge its loyalty to ISIS in 2015, ISIS had strong influence in West Africa. ISIS put their trust in former Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau to head their new campaign in West Africa. In a very surprising change of opinion by ISIS, ISIS deemed Shekau's notorious actions as "disappointing" and "was accused of 'perverting' Islam", according to David Choi of Business Insider.

The perversion of values that ISIS is accusing Shekau of includes--but not limited to--sending child suicide bombers into mosques and crowded places. Shekau is known for being very violent in his campaigns for Islam, according to political analyst Issoufou Yahaya.

"You can't really be more barbaric and savage...," Yahaya said. "He is the pinnacle of barbarism."

Those who didn't join Shekau were seen as targets in his campaign, including Muslims. ISIS noticed his strategy and they had enough. With that, ISIS replaced Shekau with a new leader, a new "governor," according to Business Insider. Abu Musab al-Barnawia is the newly appointed governor that was formally announced in a ISIS newspaper. Shekau saw no reference of him as a leader and thus, the feud between Boko Haram and ISIS began.

Since their split, Shekau has been in a battle to prove who is the more powerful leader against al-Barnawia.

While al-Barnawia is now backed by ISIS, Shekau has more resources and has more control in territory and wealth. al-Barnawia's forces are small, considering he says his campaign will focus on eliminating Nigerian Christians by  “booby-trapping and blowing up every church ... and killing all those we find from the citizens of the cross.” Shekau has a loyal force that, unless driven towards al-Barnawia's campaigns, will give him the advantage of having a more formidable group. Atta Barkindo, a Nigerian insurgency analyst, says that unless al-Barnawia is directly given support by ISIS, their forces will dwindle as they have been losing territory and sources of revenue within the past month. For all that we know, its only a matter of time before we truly see if ISIS and Boko Haram will recover from this feud.

Will a stronger force come out of this or is this the beginning of a crumbling system? Only time will tell.

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