Boko Haram: Kronin discusses that although a major purpose of terrorism is to use shock and outrage to mobilize a population of people, they can end up taking it too far (as in the case with the kidnapped girls) and risk inciting revulsion and repulsion inside the group. Without at least a minimum support in the region through public sympathy, the organization finds it more difficult to hide their members and operate effectively over time.

Al-Qaeda: They are spread out over multiple regions with multiple leaders running each of those regions. This can lead to loss of operational control by the main leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as state counterterrorism targets their operatives which can lead to chaos and an inability to communicate for a short period between regions. Additionally, Al-Qaeda recruits some brutal men who stand by their extremist ideologies and this can lead to a clash of ideas on how to carry out certain strategies. The leader can lose control when these sub leaders become increasingly unmanageable as the set goals are not met. This causes fractionalization.