Are we witnessing the birth of an African Islamic State?

On Monday, 13 soldiers were killed by the Islamic State in northeastern Nigeria. A week ago, just after midnight on Friday morning, a Boko Haram suicide bomber blew up 14 villagers in northern Cameroon. These attacks — passing us by, as they do, in a stream of news and information — are becoming increasingly common in the beleaguered states of West Africa. 

At the end of last year, Islamists kidnapped 344 schoolboys in an apparent ransom attempt. While the raid saw a continuation of Boko Haram’s strategy (in 2014 the group kidnapped 276 schoolgirls, to global condemnation) it marked a change in the terror group’s ambitions. Previously the group had confined itself mainly to the Lake Chad Basin area, with its headquarters in Borno State, encompassing the intersection of northeast Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. December’s kidnapping saw the group travel some 500 miles west to Katsina in the north of the country.

The growing confidence of these extremist militias has seen Islamist influence spread across the region as deaths soar.