Morten Bøås would like to discuss Boko Haram's development from the attempt to build a mass movement beneath Muhammad Yusuf's leadership, to Abubakar Shekau's guerrilla organization with sleeping cells in bigger cities outside the movement's main areas. The presentation will mainly focus on the different organizational traits that characterize Boko Haram. The analyzation of the  movement's development will be seen in the light of the situation in North-Nigeria and said region's location outside the Nigerian state. Bøås will also be discussing to what grade Boko Haram fits into or challenges the established analytical categories of African guerrilla movements, and what this means for our ability to understand this kind of movements.