Islamic State, Seeking Next Chapter, Makes Inroads Through West Africa
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In recent months, as Islamic State has seen its self-described caliphate in Iraq and Syria radically shrink, a Nigeria-born group calling itself the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, has taken control of hundreds of square miles of territory, according to Nigerian and Western officials.
The group’s rapid rise, largely away from public view, foreshadows the next chapter for Islamic State. Its local allies are expanding in a flurry of far-flung states, battling local armies and carving fundamentalist enclaves in Afghanistan, Mali, the Philippines and Somalia. Islamic State’s threat to regional governments and the West is likely to continue, U.S. intelligence chiefs said in a formal risk assessment last week.
The ISWAP faction, established in 2016 after a violent split within Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency is entrenching itself in the borderland communities around Lake Chad, forging state structures. It controls trade routes, taxes the local fish industry, regulates agriculture and imposes its extremist brand of Islamic justice.
The picture that emerges—based on interviews with soldiers, refugees, intelligence officers, arms smugglers and diplomats in Nigeria and Niger, as well as to people who participated in talks with the faction—is of a well armed and motivated insurgent group that expects to establish a state out of strategic geography where the U.S. is dialing back its military presence. There is no sign the group seeks to attack Western targets beyond its homeland.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-seeking-next-chapter-makes-inroads-through-west-africa-11549220824 (paid subscription)
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