Boko Haram Allegedly Joining Forces With ISIS
HARLOW: All right, this just in to CNN. A disturbing development in the war against terror. An extremist group with a history of brutality, kidnapping, mass murders, all in the name, they say, of religion, well, today, announcing that they are joining forces with ISIS. Let's go straight to London. Our senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir joins me now. We're talking about Boko Haram in this horrific propaganda video saying ISIS, we are aligned with you. How significant is this?</s>NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, for ISIS this is a huge propaganda gain. It gives them now this arc of allegiance due (ph) from Egypt, to Algeria, Libya, and then now with Nigeria that in fact pulls them down into west Africa. You have Islamic extremism groups, I should say, from coast to coast in Africa saying that they will hear and obey as</s>HARLOW: And Nima, this African union vast force has been trying very hard to hunt down Boko Haram. How do you think this impacts that effort?</s>ELBAGIR: And they have had some gains. They have managed to block their supply lines into the neighboring country, and there have been far less incursions into neighboring Cameroon chad (ph) than we've seen over the last few months. This really shows Boko Haram trying to reposition itself in this new reality where it no longer has such safe territory in northern Nigeria to operate. They're moving towards much more towards asymmetric warfare, these horrifying attacks across towns in the north of Nigeria today. Really gives you a sense of them trying to attach themselves to that brand name.</s>HARLOW: Yes. And let's not forget, this Boko Haram is the horrifying group that took so many hundreds, I believe, right, of young girls hostage and still is holding some.</s>ELBAGIR: And continues to take more girls hostage, more boys, attacking schools, targeting bus stops. You may not have heard of as many horrible tragedies perpetrated by Boko Haram as we have of ISIS. But there is absolutely no doubt about the fact that they're equally matched in terms of horror that they impact on the communities in which they operate within. This, the issue going forward is going to be that you have groups like Boko Haram, and when they come together with ISIS it's creating this megabrand name that will continue to bring in more and more donations because the people who share these ideologies will see this as a seemingly unstoppable force.</s>HARLOW: Nima, thank you very much for the reporting live for us in London this evening. Let's talk about it now with Bob Baer, our intelligence and security analyst, former CIA operative. Also with me here in New York, Chris Dickey, the foreign editor for "the Daily Beast." Bob, to you first. What does Boko Haram gives ISIS?</s>ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: This is a huge victory. The Islamic fundamentalists are on the move the sub-Saharan Africa, swearing allegiance to the caliphate in Raqqa. This is a huge, huge propaganda victory. And the rest of sub-Saharan Africa is not exactly stable. I talked to somebody about possibly going to Timbuktu. Said you can't do it. Even though there are French troops there. They are stationed outside the city, you definitely can't go in there at night. And you as a westerner, you could maybe drop in and drop out, but it's not a safe city. So even with French forces in place, sub-Saharan Africa is sort of a no-go area.</s>HARLOW: Chris, what do you think, outside of a common philosophy of terror and the use of these videos as propaganda, what do ISIS and Boko Haram give one another? Was this Boko Haram saying, hey, we're not getting all the attention so we're join this ISIS?</s>CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, FOREIGN EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: Absolutely is was. You have to remember that back in September, Boko Haram declared itself an emirate. It is like forget ISIS. We're an emirate here in Africa and nobody paid the least bit of attention. Now, we're all focused on it because it's pledging allegiance, its leadership is pledge allegiance to the emir Ibrahim Abu Bark al- Baghdadi, and all of the sudden, because ISIS is such a hot topic, Boko Haram is a hot top pick once again. But you should also know there are 30 other groups around the world from the Philippines to Afghanistan to Libya, to Egypt that have pledged allegiance to ISIS since last year. Most of them you never heard of, but it certainly is a global movement now.</s>HARLOW: Why is ISIS sort of winning in being the brand name, if you will, of this terror movement?</s>DICKEY: Well, there are several reasons. First of all, because philosophically, theologically, politically, they've sized territory and said we are now the Islamic state. That's one of the reasons it's important not to call them the Islamic state. Secondly, they are great propagandists. Even when they are losing on the battlefield they are winning on the internet because they are producing fantastically slick videos that put across their ideas in a very seductive to a generation of young men raised on video games.</s>HARLOW: Bob, what is your take in terms of what this they mean in terms of the coalition forces fighting is? Does this change the game at all?</s>BAER: It doesn't change the game but it makes the problem almost intractable. We're almost going to have to wait for this movement in collapse of its own accord because --</s>HARLOW: Really?</s>BAER: Yes. I mean, you simply can't send troops into northern Nigeria and Cameroon. We don't have enough troops. We don't have enough troops to go into Libya where ISIS is spreading, at least people that swear allegiance to it. It's in parts of Nigeria. We're not sending troops into Syria. I think ultimately this movement will collapse, but in the meantime Baghdadi is portraying himself as the defender of Sunni Islam. So everywhere you see a political vacuum, you see them at the very least, you know, getting a political propaganda. Look at Yemen where there are groups swearing allegiance, and that's because there's a huge power vacuum there. Some force, local force, needs to fill this vacuum and it will crush the Islamic state or ISIS or ISIL, whatever you want to call it. But it will take time. But not with American troops.</s>HARLOW: Chris.</s>DICKEY: No, not with American troops, but ISIS loves a vacuum and all these groups level vacuum. The Nigerian army is weak. Boko Haram took advantage of it. The Chatti army moved in, and kick the ass of ISIS. Same thing is happening with the Kurds in northern Iraq. When ISIS is up against a real army it will fight, it may fight well but it doesn't win. The problem was it took advantage of an incredibly corrupt army in Iraq to roll into Mosul last year. It took advantage of a civil war that was already waging in Syria to expand its territory there.</s>HARLOW: Yes. It is going to failed states and that's where it has progress. That's really --</s>DICKEY: Well, it not progressing in a lot of area, but t is progressing on the Internet.</s>HARLOW: Yes, certainly with the message and the propaganda.</s>DICKEY: Absolutely.</s>HARLOW: Thank you very much, Chris. Bob, thank you very much as well. We are going to take a quick break. But stay with me because next we're going to talk about the arrest that just happened today of two people suspected in the assassination of one of Vladimir Putin's biggest critics. Who are they? And are these legitimate arrests?