A screenshot taken from a video released by Boko Haram in 2014 shows the leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau.
Members of terrorist groups, which have suffered defeat in Syria and Iraq, have been relocating to Africa, where they create large terror enclaves and join ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, the Russian Security Council secretary’s assistant Alexander Venediktov told the news agency Sputnik.
“Let’s take the problem of terrorism, which today is acute for African countries. After the defeat in Syria and Iraq, some militants have been on their way to the Sahel and further southward. As a result, bandit enclaves under the banners of ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to ISIS militants, are emerging on the vast territories,” Venediktov told the news agency.
Currently, ISIS branches and ISIS-linked entities are actively operating in Libya, Egypt, Niger, Nigeria and Chad. The local terrorist group Boko Haram, which once pleged allegiance to ISIS, split from their “international” allies, but remains one of the most active ISIS-like organization in the region. At the same time, a part of Boko Haram members remained loyal to ISIS.
The issue of the terrorist threat in Africa gained a wide attention in 2018 after mainstream media outlets and Western diplomats started a propaganda campaign to “deter” the growing Chinese and Russian influence in the country. The center of of the speculations is the presence of Russian specialists and military advisers in the Central African Republic and “hostile” economic policies employed by China.
The general narrative is as always that China and Russia are preventing the growth of “democracy” in the region.
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