Boko Haram is a Nigeria-based group that seeks to overthrow the current Nigerian Government and replace it with a regime based on Islamic law.
Boko Haram, which refers to itself as “Jama‘atu Ahl as-Sunnah li-Da‘awati wal-Jihad” (Group of the Sunni People for the Calling and Jihad) and “Nigerian Taliban”. It is popularly known in Nigerian and Western media as “Boko Haram,” which means “Western education is forbidden”. The group, which has existed in various forms since the late 1990s, suffered setbacks in July 2009 when clashes with Nigerian Government forces led to the deaths of hundreds of its members, including former leader Muhammad Yusuf..
In July 2010, Boko Haram’s former second-in-command, Abubakar Shekau, appeared in a video claiming leadership of the group and threatening attacks on Western influences in Nigeria. Later that month, Shekau issued a second statement expressing solidarity with al-Qa‘ida and threatening the United States.
Under Shekau’s leadership, the group has continued to demonstrate growing operational capabilities, with an increasing use of improvised explosive devices (IED), vehicle-borne IEDs (VBIED), and female suicide attacks against a wide range of targets. The group set off its first VBIED in June 2011. On 26 August 2011, Boko Haram conducted its first attack against a Western interest—a vehicle-bomb attack on UN headquarters in Abuja—killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 80. A purported Boko Haram spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack and promised future targeting of US and Nigerian Government interests.
Boko Haram’s violence, including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Borno State, Nigeria, in April 2014, brought international condemnation and, in February 2015, provoked a significant regional offensive against the group that displaced it from the majority of its strongholds in Nigeria.
Despite this, the group remains resilient, carrying out attacks in neighboring countries such as Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, as well as Nigeria, highlighting the threat it poses to both Western and regional interests.
The increasing strength of violent extremist organizations in the Sahel poses a serious threat to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis and spread instability throughout Africa. This situation presents significant security and financial risks to both the United States and Europe. The ongoing decline of international counterterrorism support, combined with weakening leadership in regional efforts, has created a vacuum that allows violent extremism to grow.
The US State Department designated Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization in November 2013.
The insurgent group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) is a coalition formed from the former National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), the Allied Democratic Movement, and militant members of the Tablighi Jamaat movement. Under the leadership of Ugandan national Seka Musa Baluku, the ADF currently operates in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where it conducts violent acts and atrocities. Over the past decade, the ADF has committed heinous crimes against humanity in the DRC with little to no accountability.
In late 2018, the ADF established connections with the Islamic State. Before this affiliation, the ADF had been trying to forge ties with various Islamist terrorist groups for many years. The Islamic State officially recognized the ADF as its affiliate in late 2018, and since then, it has claimed responsibility for attacks attributed to the ADF in eastern DRC.
Throughout 2019, the ADF continued to execute numerous attacks against civilians, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC), and UN peacekeepers, as it had done in previous years.
In 2020, Seka Musa Baluku announced that the ADF had become a province of the Islamic State. Below is an excerpt from his announcement, released on Mujahideen TV on September 18, 2020:
“There is no ADF anymore. Allah willing, the ADF ceased to exist a long time ago. […] Currently, we are a province—the Central Africa Province— which is one of the many provinces comprising the Islamic State, under the Caliph and Leader of all Muslims, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi.”
The ADF has transformed into the Islamic State Central Africa Province—Democratic Republic of the Congo (ISCAP-DRC)—and is now recognized as a significant part of the global network of the Islamic State. The ISCAP-DRC acts as the Congolese division of this organization and has developed strong ties with the global jihadist movement, engaging actively in terrorism within the DRC and the Great Lakes region.
Frequent terrorist attacks by the ISCAP-DRC have resulted in numerous civilian casualties and the displacement of hundreds of people in the eastern provinces of the DRC. The violence directed at civilians by the ISCAP-DRC is intensifying in the region. The United States government condemns these repeated attacks on civilians in the DRC perpetrated by the ISCAP-DRC.
In March 2021, the United States State Department designated the ISCAP-DRC as a foreign terrorist organization. At the same time, the leader of this insurgent group, Seka Musa Baluku, was designated as a global terrorist. The U.S. government strongly encourages its global partners to recognize ISCAP-DRC as a foreign terrorist organization and to classify its leader as an international terrorist.
The ISCAP-DRC poses an increasing threat in the Eastern and Central regions of Africa, as evidenced by the rising number of fatalities in recent years. The group has altered its tactics, shifting from using Islamic State-supported propaganda to conducting suicide bombings. These attacks have enabled ISCAP-DRC to expand its operations into the DRC and neighboring countries. Additionally, the group is increasingly attracting foreign terrorists and fighters, further establishing itself as an ideological hub.
The ISCAP-DRC is becoming a significant transnational and international terrorist organization, with its violent activities spreading throughout eastern DRC and into neighboring countries like Uganda. The expansion of ISCAP-DRC’s terrorist cells from the DRC to surrounding nations has led to a coordinated counter-offensive strategy. On December 1, 2021, The African, a newspaper published in Kenya by the Nation Media Group, reported that the DRC and Uganda had intensified their efforts to hunt down the ISCAP-DRC rebels.