Boko Haram–ISWAP conflict
armed conflict
The Boko Haram–ISWAP conflict is an ongoing armed conflict between Boko Haram and the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP), the Nigerian branch of the Islamic State. Following the split of ISWAP from Boko Haram because of Abubakar Shekau's refusal to leave the leadership ISWAP, the Islamic State replaced him with Abu Musab al-Barnawi, which led to clashes between the two groups.
Background
Boko Haram and the Islamic State (IS) were initially allies. However, the two groups became enemies due to territorial disputes, because the Islamic State tried to conquer the zones which were under Boko Haram's control.
In July 2014, Abubakar Shekau released a 16-minute video in which he voiced his support for IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. In March 2015, Shekau pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi, and the "West Africa Province" was formed.
When the insurgents were subsequently defeated and lost almost all of their lands during the 2015 West African offensive by the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF), discontent grew among the rebels. Despite orders by IS central command to stop using women and children suicide bombers as well as refrain from mass murdering of civilians, Shekau refused to change his tactics. Researcher Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi summarizes that Shekau proved to be "too extreme even by the Islamic State's standards".
In August 2016, IS attempted to remove Shekau and replace him with Abu Musab al-Barnawi because Shekau had disobeyed al-Baghdadi's order to cease targeting Muslim civilians.
The public source identifies “Boko Haram–ISWAP conflict” as armed conflict. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Boko, Haram and ISWAP.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q139995570. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2015 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “Boko Haram–ISWAP conflict” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.