Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram has pledged allegiance or “Bay’ah” to the Islamic State (IS) in an audio statement shared online.
Mohammed Emwazi, dubbed ‘Jihadi John’ for his role as executioner in a number of Islamic State (IS) propaganda videos, has been described as a cold loner with anger issues by those that knew him.
After killing 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi were heard proclaiming, “we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad”. Amateur footage also revealed the killers invoking God with the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar”. This otherwise innocuous everyday religious utterance is frequently usurped as a jihadist battlecry.
The US has negotiated support from ten Arab states to help them tackle the threat of the Islamic State (formerly ISIS) in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.
The leader of Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabab, Ahmed Abdi Godane, has been killed in a US air strike.