Special to WorldTribune.com
Nigerian-based terror group Boko Haram has bolstered its alliance with Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) by sending jihadists to fight alongside ISIL in Libya.
Boko Haram pledged allegiance to ISIL in March.
In June, ISIL declared territory seized by Boko Haram as its West African province.
In addition to sending fighters to Libya, Boko Haram members have also recently been arrested in Lebanon, and India and Nigeria has blocked thousands of suspected jihadists from leaving the country.
According to Nigeria analyst Jacob Zenn, an estimated 80 to 200 Boko Haram fighters are in the Libyan city of Sirte, the site of heavy fighting between ISIL and Libyan government forces.
“The openness of migration routes from Nigeria through eastern Niger to Libya makes travel … fairly straightforward, and the Islamic State can easily afford to pay smugglers to carry militants (and weapons) along that route,” Zenn wrote in The Sentinel magazine of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation.
On Aug. 15 Lebanese authorities arrested hard-line ISIL cleric Ahmad al-Assir at Beirut airport. They said he planned to fly to Nigeria on a forged Palestinian passport with a Nigerian visa.
Two Nigerians studying in India were arrested Aug. 7 as they tried to cross illegally into Pakistan to join ISIL.
The Nigeria Immigration Service reported barring 23,472 people from leaving the country between January 2014 and March 2015. “There have been reports in recent times of some Nigerians departing to join terrorist groups especially in the Middle East and North Africa,” said PR Nigeria, which publishes government news.
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