Joe Penney/Reuters
The Islamic State terror group’s media arm on Wednesday announced a new leader of the Boko Haram extremist group in Nigeria, signalling a major change in strategy and new targets for terrorist attacks. The new leader was presented as Abu Musab al-Barnawi by the ISIS-controlled newspaper al-Nabaa. Barnawi was reported to have said Boko militants should stop targeting mosques and markets and instead focus on churches and aid groups in the hopes of killing Christians rather than Muslims. Barnawi also vowed to fight the “Christianization of society” by “booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all of those [Christians] who we find from the citizens of the cross.” In addition to laying out a new strategy, Barnawi’s comments also seem to point to more terrorist groups distancing themselves from al Qaeda and moving closer to the self-proclaimed Islamic State.