Boko Haram along with 16 others in exchange for a ransom of $3.15 million. As well as extortion from local residents, Boko Haram has claimed to extort money from local state governments. A spokesman of Boko Haram claimed that Kano state governor Ibrahim Shekarau and Bauchi state governor Isa Yuguda had paid them monthly. It has long been alleged that Boko Haram had a relationship with al-Qaeda. In 2011, letters from Boko Haram were reportedly found in bin Laden's compound. Three weeks after the 2009 Boko Haram uprising began, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb expressed sympathy for Boko Haram. Speaking by phone
Haram, Norway merged into the neighboring Sandøy Municipality to the east. Also on that date, most of the municipality of Vatne (population: 2,260) to the southeast of Haram Municipality was merged into Haram Municipality. There was one other municipal boundary change on that date in 1965: the Søvik area in Borgund Municipality (population: 1,191) to the south of Haram Municipality were merged with Haram. This boundary change created a much larger municipality of Haram. In June 2017, the Parliament of Norway voted to merge Haram with the neighboring municipalities of Skodje, Ørskog, Sandøy, and Ålesund to form a new, large municipality of