To access the full paper, download the PDF on the left-hand sidebar.
Boko Haram is a Salafi-jihadi Muslim group that has operated in northeastern Nigeria since 2002. After a violent suppression in 2009, Boko Haram resurfaced in the fall of 2010 with a high profile campaign of assassinations and attacks throughout northern Nigeria. Starting in the summer of 2011, Boko Haram began to use suicide attacks, and have manifested the signs of transitioning into a globalist Salafi-jihadi group that might be of some importance in Africa's most populous country, Nigeria, which is a major oil producer. The pattern of Boko Haram's attacks, and threats of attacks, focuses more and more on interests that touch U.S. economic concerns in the region; the group has not avoided both contact with globalists (in Somalia, presumably) and citing the United States specifically as an eventual target.
This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
