Can Boko Haram Be Called An Islamist Movement?

It has declared its own "caliphate", sworn allegiance to the Middle Eastern death cult calling itself Islamic State, and its followers believe western education is evil.

As such, Boko Haram fits the Islamofascist typecast.

But it also bears remarkable similarity to another violent terror group, the Lord's Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony but founded by Alice Lakwena as a charismatic Christian movement in the 1980s.

One might, therefore, be tempted to conclude that Boko Haram is nothing more than a profiteering gang of murderers and thugs - a west African version of the LRA, the Interahamwe, or the Mai Mai of the Congo.

But it would be too easy to dismiss Boko Haram as not being a "proper" Islamist movement.

Most often, the truth is that whatever the genesis of violent groups, even ones with a legitimate fight, they very often – in fact overwhelmingly – become self-serving movements focused on perpetuating the wealth and interests of their leadership above all else.

This is why whether they are Boko Haram, IS, the LRA or al Shabaab, they need a constant flow of volunteers to replenish their ranks who arrive still believing in the original cause. When these fade, they forcibly recruit.

The same pattern can be seen in areas under IS control in Syria and Iraq.

IS kidnaps women, forces them into sex slavery, extorts protection money from the local population, kills with impunity and claims a religious imperative just like Boko Haram or the LRA.

"God made me do it" is both a powerful mantra and a pretty good excuse.

Even the austere al Qaeda franchises are on the make - officially to ensure they can continue their "resistance" against the decadent west.

Moktar bel Moktar, who was behind the Algerian Tigantourine gas facility attack in which 39 hostages died in 2013, was an arms drugs and cigarette smuggler who split from al Qaeda - probably because he wasn't sharing his profits with jihadi comrades.

Similarly, Boko Haram has thrived in smuggler country on the triple borders of Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad.

It has funded itself with bank robberies and extortion, swollen its ranks with abducted youth, and used rape and forced marriage to carry its programme into the next generation.

It has not "ruled" anywhere. It has laid waste. It has profited. And its success has attracted criminals and lost youth who have wrapped themselves in a black flag to self-justify a joyriding run of murder.

It's not clear that Boko Haram's followers have even the faintest grip on Islam.

They do, however, like so many elsewhere, enjoy the power that flows from the muzzle of an AK47 and the perks that it brings.

This is why they should not be seen as any kind of strategic threat. They are not. None of them are.

They pose a criminal problem because that is what they are – criminals.