– ‘We rose up to fight the world’ –
Shekau’s speech appeared to put the Boko Haram insurgency in the wider context of global jihad, possibly in response to the regional nature of the conflict.
In the last six years, the group has mainly operated in three states in northeast Nigeria, taking over a succession of towns and villages as part of its aim to create a hardline Islamic state.
Boko Haram has been considered to have essentially local aims and is thought to have few direct, operational links to jihadi groups elsewhere, although it is believed to include some foreign fighters, most likely paid mercenaries.
But Shekau has mentioned groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the leader of the so-called Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
One of the three latest videos shows Baghdadi with archive footage and a voiceover recalling a battle between British soldiers and fighters from the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria.
The Sokoto Caliphate was dismantled by British colonialists who annexed the northern Islamic kingdoms and the predominantly Christian south to form Nigeria in the early 20th century.
In his speech Shekau appears to broaden the group’s aim: “We never rose up to fight Africa. We rose up to fight the world.
“We are going to fight the world on the principle that whoever doesn’t obey Allah and the Prophet to either obey or die or become a slave.”
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