Terrorist groups - home based:
Ansaru: aim(s): establish an Islamic state in Nigeria area(s) of operation: headquartered in the north; formed in 2012 as a breakaway faction of Boko Haram; has a history of attacking Nigerian Government officials and facilities and kidnapping and killing Westerners; activities have waned in recent years, especially since founder Khalid al-BARNAWI was arrested in Lokoja, Kogi State, in central Nigeria in April 2016; authorities arrested several commanders and fighters in Kogi State in mid-2016; kidnappings for ransom remain the group's primary revenue source; membership was assessed in 2017 to be much smaller than Boko Haram's estimated manpower strength of the low thousands
Boko Haram: aim(s): replace the Nigerian Government with an Islamic state under strict Sharia and, ultimately, establish an Islamic caliphate across Africa; avenge military offenses against the group and destroy any political or social activity associated with Western society, including voting, attending secular schools, and wearing shirts and trousers area(s) of operation: headquartered in the northeast, where the group was founded under the late Muslim cleric Mohammed YUSUF; since 2011, fighters have killed over 26,000 Nigerians during hundreds of attacks and disrupted trade and farming in the northeast, causing a calamitous famine and internally displacing an estimated 2.6 million people; continues to carry out suicide bombings in heavily populated areas, especially in the north and northeast, and to deepen food insecurity; remains the country's largest jihadist group; Nigeria continues to participate in the Joint Multinational Force's military offensives combating Boko Haram; one of the group's deadliest attacks began on 3 January 2015, when fighters used petrol bombs and other explosives and burned buildings in a series of mass killings in the northeast in Borno State in Baga and several surrounding villages that ended on 7 January 2015, with approximately 2,000 deaths and thousands of displaced civilians; lost its total control over the northeast in 2015, when the Nigerian military routed out cells from many of the group's longtime strongholds; conducted the largest recorded single kidnapping incident of women and children in Nigeria's history, when operatives abducted approximately 276 teenage female students in Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014; manpower strength was estimated in 2017 to be in the low thousands

Terrorist groups - foreign based:
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): aim(s): replace the Nigerian Government with an Islamic state and implement ISIL's strict interpretation of Sharia area(s) of operation: based in the north along the border with Niger, with its heaviest presence in the northeast; targets primarily regional military installations; in areas under its influence, members enforce its strict interpretation of Sharia, direct religious education, and collect taxes imposed on companies and individuals; operates under Abu Mus'ab al-BARNAWI, the branch's leader since July 2016; ISIL has referred to Nigeria since circa March 2015 as its Wilayat Gharb Afriqiya, which translates to West Africa; as an official branch of core ISIL, it is also known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—West Africa (ISIL-WA), Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham—West Africa (ISIS-WA), and Islamic State West Africa; assessed in 2016 to have a fighter strength in the low thousands