Developments in conflicts across the world that you might have missed this week.

Teaching Notes on The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State by CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Noah Feldman.

The area between Niamey, Niger and Niger State, Nigeria will not be spared from jihadist groups’ attacks any longer and ISWA’s two branches, Shekau’s faction, and Ansaru will all be competing for recruits in the same areas.

Members of the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), a faction of Boko Haram, recently executed eleven hostages on camera. The video, released to a Nigerian Journalist on December 26, alleged that all the hostages executed were Christians, and that their murders were in retaliation for the killing of Abubakar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, by U.S. forces in October. It is ISWA that has identified them as Christians, but the identities of the eleven murdered have not been released.