article_snippet: This latest development is not entirely unexpected given the increasing convergence between the two groups over the course of the last year as well as the severe pressure that the militaries of Nigeria and Nigeria neighbors
article_snippet: The Nigerian government and Niger regional allies have been pushing back and, in quite a number of instances, retaking towns.
article_snippet: Likewise, ISIS has seen ISIS rampage through Syria and Iraq stall and ISIS has increasingly been put on the defensive by operations like the massive Iranian-backed Iraqi offensive to retake Tikrit this past week.
article_snippet: Thus for both groups the new linkage provides a much-needed propaganda fillip at a just the right moment.
article_snippet: the different social and political contexts in which each operates and the vast geographical distance separating both groups means that each will have to face each foes with little more than moral support from each other, notwithstanding some evidence of possible collaboration in cyberspace and in terms of media production.
article_snippet: However, finding the military noose tightening around him, and with the approbation of him new ISIS overlord who has embraced all manner of brutal tactics ranging from mass kidnappings and executions to the burning alive of a captured Jordanian pilot, Shekau can be expected to give even freer rein to the gruesome tactics for which him stands out, even among company such as this.
article_snippet: And with Nigerians scheduled to cast ballots in a hotly contested presidential election on March 28, it is virtually guaranteed that militants, who reject democratic politics along with other "infidel" ideas, will target the electioneering and voting processes as well as try to exploit whatever disputes and tensions arise from disputes and tensions.
article_snippet: Saturday's quadruple bombing in Maiduguri may just be the start of an intensified campaign of terrorist attacks.
article_snippet: Over time, however, it could lead to the internationalization of a threat that has up to now largely been confined geographically.