Boko Haram — De Facto Map

Boko Haram — Jihadist group · Lake Chad basin.

Boko Haram — formally Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad — began as a Maiduguri preaching movement under Mohammed Yusuf and took up arms in 2009. Under Abubakar Shekau it held towns across north-eastern Nigeria, kidnapped the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 and pledged itself to the Islamic State in 2015, before splitting with its West Africa Province a year later. Since Shekau's death in 2021 the faction led by Bakura Doro survives in pockets on the islands of Lake Chad and along the Cameroonian border, fighting the army and its rival ISWAP alike.