From Nigeria, a lesson in how to topple terrorists

(The Christian Science Monitor) After the self-proclaimed Islamic State swept in from Syria in 2014 and grabbed huge swaths of Iraq, counterterrorism experts said the group’s control of significant territory would make it considerably more difficult to defeat.

Now switch continents. In Nigeria, the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has been losing control of a growing slice of the territory it held just a year ago. The Nigerian military is pushing the group out of towns and villages it once controlled, and the impact of drought and the group’s own scorched-earth strategy is forcing uprooted Boko Haram militants to surrender.

If Islamic State’s land grab made it more difficult to dislodge, does it follow that Boko Haram’s loss of territory in northeastern Nigeria is weakening the terrorist group and potentially putting it on the road to defeat?