Nigeria's Boko Haram Swears Allegiance to Islamic State in Recent Video

Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist group pledged allegiance to the Syrian-based Islamic State over the weekend, making it one of the most recent groups to offer its support to the Middle Eastern terrorist organization.

A video uploaded to the Boko Haram twitter account purportedly shows Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau pledging his group's allegiance to the Islamic State. Shekau discusses the Islamic caliphate established by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq that calls for an ultra-conservative interpretation of Shariah Law.

"We announce our allegiance to the Caliph [...] and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease," Shekau says in the video. "We call upon Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the Caliph."

It remains unclear if the Islamic State will swear allegiance back to the Nigerian terrorist group, but some counterterrorism experts have warned that the Islamic State may want to recruit young Nigerians to join its ranks in Syria and Iraq.

"We are aware that recruiters for ISIS from South Africa are seeking to recruit young vulnerable Nigerians via the social media. This was why we alerted Nigerians last week of this development," Mike Omeri, Coordinator of the National Information Center, told The Daily Beast in reference to a recent case of a young Nigerian allegedly leaving home to join the Islamic State.

Last week, the Nigeria-based terrorist organization released a graphic video showing the beheading of two hostages. The details of the video, as well as the graphics and editing style, were similar to previous videos released by the Islamic State.