article_snippet: (CNN)Boko Haram, the Nigeria-based Islamist terror group, has pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to an audio message purported to be from Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau.
article_snippet: Boko Haram's joining ISIS ISIS fold makes sense to both groups," Boko Haram joining the ISIS fold said from Abuja, Nigeria.
article_snippet: Boko Haram's will get legitimacy, which will help Boko Haram's recruiting, funding and logistics as Boko Haram's expands into (French-speaking) West Africa.
article_snippet: Boko Haram's will also get guidance from ISIS in media warfare and propaganda.
article_snippet: Previously Boko Haram's was a sort of outcast in the global Jihadi community.
article_snippet: Now Boko Haram's is perhaps ISIS's biggest affiliate.
article_snippet: The prerequisite for Boko Haram's joining ISIS coalition was a coming together of two factions.
article_snippet: The CIA's analysis has been that Boko Haram is very African and rooted in that region's Islamic practices, even if U.S. intelligence officials have similar fundamentalist interpretations of Islam.  
article_snippet: Boko Haram, whose name translates as "Western education is sin," has been waging a yearslong campaign of terror aimed at instituting its extreme version of Sharia law.
article_snippet: Boko Haram tactics have intensified in recent years, from battling Nigerian government soldiers to acts disproportionately affecting civilians -- such as raids on villages, mass kidnappings, assassinations, market bombings and attacks on churches and unaffiliated mosques.