CAIRO — The March 18 terrorist attack in Tunisia on Bardo Museum that resulted in the death of 20 tourists and the March 7 broadcast of a video on social media sites showing the Nigerian movement Boko Haram pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) show the expansion of IS into the African continent. Up until this point, IS' presence in Africa seemed confined to North Africa in Libya’s coastal cities, Egypt’s Sinai and some places in Algeria.

The latest indicators of IS’ expansion pose a new threat to the entire African continent. The expansion in Africa is favorable for the group due to poverty, political conflict, continual sectarian tension and the illegal spread of weapons. This supports IS’ ambitions to extend the so-called caliphate from the Levant to the land of Egypt, the land of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and to the Maghreb, according to a map of the caliphate published by the group on its social media sites.

Boko Haram is a jihadist group founded in 2002. It claims to follow the teachings of Islam and it controls areas in northern Nigeria. The group’s official name is “The people of the Sunnis for Preaching and Jihad,” but in January 2002, it called itself Boko Haram, meaning “preventing Western education” or “Western education is haram” (forbidden). The group launches attacks across the Nigerian border into Cameroon and Niger in its quest to establish what it calls the “Islamic emirate” on the area of Chad Lake, bordering Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger. The African Summit held in January 2015 in Addis Ababa had decided to form a regional power in which Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Benin and Chad would participate in order to confront this group.

The timing of Boko Haram's pledge of allegiance did not come as a surprise for analysts and politicians. It was rather expected after Boko Haram recently began to adopt IS’ approach in its raids on villages such as stoning, slaughter and burning. In addition, Boko Haram’s leader, Abu Bakr Chico, said in February 2015, in a video that was published on the Internet, that the kidnapping and hostage-taking operations comply with the text of the Quran, which is often repeated by IS’ leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Not to mention that during its latest operations — mainly in Bosso in Niger in February, during which 100 people were killed — Boko Haram raised IS flags.