Former CIA Direstor Explains Boko Haram's Relationship With ISIS

A former deputy director and former acting director of the CIA, John McLaughlin is one of the greatest minds in international security and in an interview with the BBC, he explains the relationship ISIS and Boko Haram are forming.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN

I think what we are seeing here is a spreading phenomenon and there is a kind off natural affinity here, there is a kind of number of indications since at least the beginning of the year that contacts have been underway between Boko Haram and the Islamic State.

Question: what would it mean in practical terms for Boko Haram and for ISIS?
Well its easy to read off the same script because it’s all pretty much online but the question of what the practical implications are of course really up in the air, my personal view, it’s that (of course this is a hunch and not based on any investigation) the Islamic state has practically reached out to Boko Haram partly because the Islamic state has so much money.


One of the things we have seen is that Boko Haram’s videos their propaganda, their face to the world has become slicker and more professional than it was before, this is very much the hallmark of the Islamic state.

My hunch is that someone from islamic state has been coaching them, the practical impact of this could be very much from the little to just the sharing of symbol, sharing of language all the way up to the exchange of fighters.

Question: At some point, is it possible to see people coming from Europe from foreign nations to join and fight with Boko Haram as we have seen people go to Syria?

I think that’s a little less likely than in the case of the Islamic state, because what’s bringing them to the Islamic state is the grievances of a large Sunni community that feels disempowered and abused. I am not aware of a similar magnetic connection, if you will in the case of Boko Haram.

Question: Talk to me about the similarities and differences, you see between Boko Haram and the Islamic state?
The similarities are a commitment to brutality, in fact Boko Haram has been practising some of the brutal tactics we see with Islamic state. Even before the Islamic state began to do them like they have, such as the beheading and so forth.

They are similar due to the fact they claim they share an allegiance to that particular variety of Islam which rejects western values and particularly in the case of Boko Haram western education, there the similarities end.

How can the West respond?
I was asking myself what is it that makes this era of terrorism different, and I think these are the qualities, money access, narrative and territory.
Combating this is very difficult in part because the terrorists now have the largest safe havens.
If you start with ISIS, the two things you have to do is to take their territory from them in a major way as Iran and Iraq are all trying to do and as the coalition are trying to do.

And the second thing you have to do is to accomplish in some way steps that address the grievances of Sunnis in Iraq and Syria.

That 70% of the population has been abused by the minority the Alawites that are represented by President Assad.

Its harder, I think in the case of Nigeria and Boko Haram, cause there you have in the vicinity of that group, I think you have less capable militaries and you have a phenomenon that is not well-known understood as the case of ISIS.

Everyone is experimenting on what are the right tactics to deal with this type of terrorism and in truth the way to defeat terrorism, three things have to be done.
You have to destroy the leadership, you have to deny them safe heavens and you need to address grievances that give rise to the phenomenon.

The first two are in some degree manageable, with intelligence and military but the third one which is changing the conditions is a much larger problem, that’s something for government as a whole to deal with.

When you look at the magnitude of the problem and the complexity of it all bets are off due to the conditions in which people live in.


John Edward McLaughlin is the former deputy director and former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His CIA career lasted more than 30 years, starting in 1972 with a focus on European, Russian, and Eurasian issues in the Directorate of Intelligence.