article_snippet: Last week ISIS welcomed into the fold Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist group with thousands of fanatical fighters that dominates territory the size of New Jersey.
article_snippet: In Nigeria, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to ISIS earlier this month and brought celebrations to the streets of Raqqa, ISIS headquarters town in Syria.
article_snippet: Boko Haram hopes Boko Haram will bring a recruitment, fundraising and propaganda windfall.
article_snippet: The merger with the Islamic State was a strategic, calculated, and long-term decision coming from the top of the Boko Haram leadership and communications structure," wrote Jacob Zenn, an expert on the group, in a just released West Point Combating Terrorism Center study on ISIS growing array of affiliates.
article_snippet: Though military operations by Nigeria and Chad have eroded Boko Haram safe haven in northeastern Nigeria in recent weeks, the group still has formidable capacity to terrorize the region.
article_snippet: For reasons of geography, there appear to be fewer organizational ties between ISIS and Boko Haram than between ISIS and ISIS affiliates in Libya and Egypt.
article_snippet: The numbers of Boko fighters who have fought or trained with ISIS in places such as Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Libya and returned to Nigeria is believed to be small: fewer than 20 fighters and video-propagandists," Zenn, who was recently briefed by Nigerian intelligence officials, told CNN.