Foreign Relations & International Law Terrorism & Extremism

Jihadology Podcast: 'Boko Haram' Transitions to The Islamic State in West Africa with Jacob Zenn

Aaron Y. Zelin
Tuesday, August 4, 2015, 9:06 AM

In this episode Aaron talks to Jacob Zenn about the group commonly referred to as Boko Haram. They covered a variety of topics including:

Published by The Lawfare Institute
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In this episode Aaron talks to Jacob Zenn about the group commonly referred to as Boko Haram. They covered a variety of topics including:

  • Background on Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyya
  • Misuse of the term Boko Haram to describe what is now called Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyya, but previously was Jama’at Ahl al-Sunnah li-l-Da’wah wa-l-Jihad
  • Process that led Jama’at Ahl al-Sunnah li-l-Da’wah wa-l-Jihad to pledge bay’a to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and become Wilayat Gharb Ifriyya of The Islamic State?
  • Current status of Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyya in Nigeria over the past few months
  • Key questions and observations Jacob is currently looking at to see how situation might develop in the future

This episode also features a discussion of primary source material released between July 18th to August 1st, and a #SocialMedia segment covering posts from July 28th to August 3rd. Links:

The podcast is produced by Karl Morand. If you have feedback you can email podcast@jihadology.net, or find us on Twitter: @JihadPod. You can subscribe to the show in iTunes or with our RSS feed.

Download mp3 (38MB)


Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a visiting research scholar in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University, and the founder of Jihadology. He is also the author of the book “Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad” (Columbia University Press, 2020) and the recent booklet “The Age of Political Jihadism: A Study of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.”

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