U.S. and France Target Boko Haram and Focus On Africa’s Strategic Minerals

‘After Boko Haram reportedly killed hundreds of people in the remote Nigerian town of Baga and detonated a bomb in Maiduguri, The Telegraph estimated the terror group now controls approximately 20,000 square miles of territory, an area the size of Belgium.

The British newspaper characterizes the group as the African version of the Islamic State — a caliphate that has supposedly “achieved mastery over 11 local government areas with a total population exceeding 1.7 million people.”

“There is a copy-cat element at work here,” said Andrew Pocock, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria. “If Isil can declare a Caliphate, then so can we. Boko Haram want to be seen by their peers as grown-up jihadis. They want to show ‘we can control territory, we can control a Caliphate’.”

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