IS Accepts Allegiance Of Boko Haram

The Islamic State group has welcomed a pledge of allegiance to it made
by the Nigerian jihadist organisation Boko Haram, according to an
audiotape Thursday purportedly from its spokesman.

"We announce to you to the good news of the expansion of the caliphate
to West Africa because the caliph... has accepted the allegiance of our
brothers of the Sunni group for preaching and the jihad," IS spokesman
Mohammed al-Adnani said in the message, using the Arabic name for Boko
Haram.

Itself a radical Sunni Muslim movement, IS has seized large swathes of
Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic "caliphate" there, and has also
drawn expressions of allegiance from jihadists in Egypt and Libya.

On Saturday, an audiotape attributed to Boko Haram leader Abubakar
Shekau said "we announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims,
Ibrahim ibn Awad ibn Ibrahim al-Husseini al-Qurashi," referring to IS
leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Shekau has previously mentioned Baghdadi in video messages yet stopped
short of pledging formal allegiance.

But there have been increasing signs that the Nigerian militants,
whose six-year insurgency has claimed more than 13,000 lives and left
1.5 million people homeless, have been seeking a closer tie-up.

IS spokesman Adnani urged Muslims to join militants in West Africa and
insisted that the caliphate was growing.

"Our caliphate is resisting and it is advancing in the right
direction. We are fighting the Crusaders and the rafidah (Shiites) and
day by day the Islamic State is becoming strong," he said.

He insisted that the jihadist group is "sure of its victory"
regardless of the challenges it is facing.

For months, IS has been targeted with air strikes from a coalition led
by the United States and suffered territorial setbacks in Syria and
Iraq.

And Iraqi government forces have closed on the city of Tikrit this
week in a bid to retake it from the group.
--Vanguard