MAIDUGURI, nigeria — Nigeria’s homegrown Boko Haram terrorist group, newly weakened by a multinational force that has dislodged it from a score of northeastern towns, reportedly pledged formal allegiance to the Islamic State terrorists.
The pledge to the Islamic State came in an Arabic audio message with English subtitles alleged to have come from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and posted Saturday on Twitter, according to the SITE Intelligence monitoring service.
Earlier, the Nigerian terrorist group was blamed for four suicide-bomb attacks that police said killed at least 54 people and wounded 143 in the northeast city of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and birthplace of Boko Haram.
The blasts occurred over four hours in locations from a busy fish market to a bus station, said Police Commissioner Clement Adoda.
The Boko Haram pledge to the Islamic State comes as the Nigerian terrorists reportedly are amassing in the northeastern town of Gwoza, considered their headquarters, for a showdown with a Chadian-led multinational force.
Boko Haram in August followed the lead of the Islamic State in declaring an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria that grew to cover an area the size of Belgium.
The Nigerian terrorists also began publishing videos of beheadings. The latest one, published Monday, borrowed certain elements from Islamic State production.
