ABSTRACT
Boko Haram means literally the "Forbidden Book", a reference to the Western books, culture, and education that are prohibited by this radical Muslim group in northern Nigeria, the most populated African country, which is split between the Muslim north and the Christian south. Boko Haram was founded as a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist sect advocating a strict form of Shari'a law and developed into a Salafist-jihadi group in 2009, influenced by the Wahhabi movement. The Nigerian government claims that Boko Haram is "the West Africa branch of the world-wide Al-Qa'ida movement with connections with Al-shabab in Somalia and AQIM in Mali". In fact, all Islamic movements which attract Muslim youth from all over the globe, like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq, are being internationalized not only by their doctrine and aspirations, including from among Muslim minorities in the West, to swell their ranks.
