Boko Haram as a element of the terrorist net in Central Africa

Boko Haram ("Western Education is Forbidden"), established in the mid-1990's in the north-eastern Nigeria initially as a sunni-islamic religious group, became in the following years one of the most ruthless and non-compromised armed terrorist units in Central Africa. Using kidnapping for ransom, suicide bombings, robbery, murder and jihadist propaganda, it has been transformed from a local guerrilla group into an international terrorist network asswociated with the Islamic State, seeking to establish an "Islamic State in West Africa Province". Boko Haram's impact on regional security has been crucial mainly because of its disintegrating influence on the Nigerian state, an important worldwide oil supplier and holder of the status of a hub connecting the Islamic State with Al Qaeda in Africa.