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Boko Haram fracturing over ISIS ties, says U.S. General

A senior U.S. military general yesterday said the terrorist group, Boko Haram, had fractured internally.
PHOTO:AFP

PHOTO:AFP

A senior U.S. military general yesterday said the terrorist group, Boko Haram, had fractured internally.

Thomas Waldhauser, a Lieut. -Gen. and the nominee to lead U.S. military’s Africa Command said this in Washington during his nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He said the problem in the group resulted from some members splitting from the leader, Abubakar Shekau, over his failure to adhere to guidance from the Iraq and Syria-based Islamic State.

According to Reuters and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Waldhauser said the internal division was illustrative of limits of Islamic State’s influence over Boko Haram so far, in spite of the West African group’s pledge of allegiance to it last year.

“Several months ago, about half of Boko Haram broke off to a separate group because they were not happy with the amount of buy-in, if you will, from Boko Haram into the ISIL brand,’’ he explained.

He said Shekau had not fallen into line with Islamic State’s instructions, including ignoring calls for Boko Haram to stop using children as suicide bombers.

“He’s been told by ISIL to stop doing that, but he has not done so, and that’s one of the reasons why this splinter group has broken off.

“But, the Islamic State was trying to reconcile those two groups,’’ he said.

The military chief said there was no evidence that Boko Haram had so far received significant operational support or financing from Islamic State.

He said the assessment suggested that Boko Haram’s loyalty pledge had so far, mostly been a branding exercise.

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