Nigeria: Report Gives Details, Says Terrorist Groups Gaining Foothold in Nigeria

In February, Corinne Dufka again wrote to Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, calling on him to investigate her phony Kuru Karama tale, the alleged excessive use of the police in 2008 and the extra-judicial killing of Boko Haram members last year. Curiously, Ms Dufka did not mention the widespread allegations that Hausa/Fulani soldiers killed other Nigerians during the January crisis in her letter. The Kuru Karama story was used by the Jihadists in Jos to mobilise the Fulani killers who carried out the bestial killings of Sunday.

Again, in the release distributed by Human Rights Watch, Ms Dufka alleged that 200 people were killed last Sunday. Yet, from the reports of the Nigerian media, more than 500 people died in the massacre. The burial of the victims were carried out in the presence of the media. Why has the organisation reduced the number of victims if not for propaganda purposes?

The Human Rights Watch obviously does not know what is happening in Jos. It is being fed with prejudiced information by unknown persons, which the organisation dishes to the world as facts about the crisis. For example, Corinne Dufka sent an email to this writer on Monday, 8 March 2009, asking for contacts at the Jos University Teaching Hospital for the purpose of sourcing information for her report.

Ms Dufka only knows me from the articles I have written on the crisis on Sahara Reporters and she was asking me for sources on the crisis that she was supposed to be a specialist on! President Jonathan should order a probe into the role of Human Rights Watch in the Jos crisis as a matter of national emergency. This is because the crisis is being increasingly internationalised as evidenced by the recent statement of the global terror group, Al Qaeda Maghreb, supporting "Muslims" in Jos.

Also, Nigerians should write protest letters to Human Rights Watch to tell the organisation to stop being helpers to Hausa/Fulani genocidaires in Nigeria.

[Description of Source: Ibadan Nigerian Tribune Online in English -- Website of the privately owned daily; URL: http://www.tribune.com.ng]

Nigeria: Islamic Sect Threatens To Attack US Interests

FEA20100329003228 - OSC Feature - AFP (World Service) 1234 GMT 29 Mar 10

KANO, Nigeria, March 29, 2010 (AFP) - Nigeria's self-styled Taliban militant Islamist sect, whose short-lived uprising was brutally put down by the security forces last year, has threatened to widen its activities beyond the borders.

"Islam doesn't recognise international boundaries, we will carry out our operations anywhere in the world if we can have the chance," said Musa Tanko, spokesman of the Boko Haram sect, in a rare interview given to AFP on Sunday.

"The United States is the number one target for its oppression and aggression against Muslim nations particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan and its blind support to Israel in its killings of our Palestinian brethren," Tanko said, adjusting his starched bottle green kaftan.

Thousands of Boko Haram Islamic sect militia launched an armed insurrection in July 2009 from their enclave in the northern city of Maiduguri and several other cities in the region in a doomed bid to establish an Islamic state.

"We will launch fiercer attacks than Iraqi or Afghan Mujahedeen (Islamic fighters) against our enemies throughout the world, particularly the US, if the chance avails itself within the confines of what Islam prescribes but for now our attention is focused on Nigeria which is our starting point," Tanko said, as he placed a black file folder on his lap.

Slim, dark, chin-bearded and soft-spoken, Tanko, 30, betrayed no emotion as he spoke under a defoliated tree, intermittently wiping sweat off his glistening forehead with a white handkerchief, while his four colleagues nodded in approval between pauses.

The group draws its inspiration from the Afghan Taliban and sees Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Umar and the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, as its champions, Tanko said.

"We see Mullah Umar and Osama bin Laden as the true champions of Islam who are fighting Allah's enemies and our allegiance and support go to them although we don't have any contact with them yet," Tanko said.

Tanko said the group was not daunted by the police's extra-judicial killings of its members by security forces during the July rebellion.

Nigerian police and troops crushed the uprising after a four-day street battle that claimed more than 800 lives, mostly of sect members.

The killings, he said, "have made us more determined and committed in our struggle. We are undeterred," Tanko said in the local Hausa dialect.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera television station aired five minutes of footage in February showing policemen shooting unarmed Boko Haram sect members outside a police headquarters in Maiduguri.

"The gruesome killings of our brothers ...has not in any way dampened our spirit, in fact it has made us more steadfast and determined in our holy struggle to oust the secular regime and entrench a just Islamic government," Tanko said in northern Nigeria's commercial capital Kano.

The interview is the first the group granted since the rebellion was put down, forcing them to go underground.

The video footage drew local and international outcry, forcing Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to order an investigation which led to the arrest of 17 police officers.

Sect leader Muhammad Yusuf was allegedly gunned down by police hours after his capture.

The group, originally called Nigerian Taliban, made its debut in January 2003 when it set up a base in Kanamma village, northeastern Yobe state near the border with Niger. It attacked police stations, killing policemen and carting away ammunition. Scores of militants were killed, some arrested while many went underground.

In September of the same year they regrouped and launched attacks on police stations near the border with Cameroon. Around two dozen were killed in clashes with Nigerian troops, several arrested and the rest disappeared in mountains.

The group, whose name means "Western education is sin" in the local dialect, initially drew its membership mostly from young graduates and university dropouts who reject anything Western.

"We have shown capacity to regroup and re-launch attacks in the face of crackdown and anybody who thinks the last has been heard of us is mistaken.

"We believe what we are doing is divine worship and ideology cannot be defeated through repression," Tanko said.

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (World Service) in English -- world news service of the independent French news agency Agence France Presse]

Nigeria: Police on Alert Over Religious Text Message Threat in North

AFP20100330606006 Lagos Daily Champion in English 30 Mar 10 p 1

[Report by Reporter: "Tension in north"]

Tension and suspense brewed yesterday in some parts of the north, particularly Maiduguri, Borno State, as the Nigerian police and immigration services were kept on red alert, as they received text messages threatening new religious violence by a radical Islamic sect. Agency reports said the text messages which warned of an impending sectarian violence, resulted in the setting up of checkpoints by armoured tanks around Maiduguri, where rioting by the Islamic sect Boko Haram and an ensuing police crackdown left 700 people dead late July.

Immigration agents in the state that borders Chad, Niger and Cameroon also are watching for Boko Haram members who may cross the border to spark new violence in the area, said Adamu Isa Azare, an assistant superintendent of police in Borno. Azare said the increased security presence comes after police received text messages that promised the group would rise again and attack around Maiduguri.

He said: "We are not (sure) if it is Boko Haram per se, because some people we are yet to identify were just sending text messages to people that there was going to be attacks. For this reason, we stepped up our security apparatus as proactive measures to ensure we were not caught unaware. We want to ensure the people are well-policed. We don’t want to take anything for granted."

Azare also asked the public to call authorities if they saw large groups of unfamiliar people moving into the region.

Boko Haram — which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language — has campaigned for the implementation of strict Shar’ia law. Its members rioted and attacked police stations and private homes in late July, sparking the police crackdown. Authorities have been accused of killing Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf while he was in custody. Police officials said he was killed while trying to escape, but army officials said he was alive when he was arrested.

The group largely went underground after Yusuf’’s death. In early March, police arrested 17 officers suspected of taking part in filmed executions that later aired on international news channel Al-Jazeera.

[Description of Source: Lagos Daily Champion in English -- Privately owned pro-Igbo daily]

Nigeria Intensifies Patrolling on Borders To Check Infiltration of Sect Members

AFP20100404581006 Lagos The Guardian Online in English 04 Apr 10

[Report by Njadvara Musa: "Boko Haram: Police, Immigration Beef Up Security"]

The Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Immigrations Service (NIS) personnel in the border areas with Niger, Chad, and Cameroun have intensified patrols and surveillance to check the rumoured infiltration of the Boko Haram sect members into Borno and neighbouring states of Yobe and Adamawa.

At the weekend, a heavy presence of anti-riot policemen and combined team of security personnel attached to the state security task force, Operation Flush II, at the Maiduguri Police headquarters was seen on Airport road.

The security operatives took strategic locations in Maiduguri metropolis, with police armoured tanks stationed on some strategic streets and at public places for 24-hour patrol and surveillance.

The Guardian yesterday gathered that some members of the dreaded Islamic sect had returned to Borno State at the weekend, with alleged intention of hiding under the cloak of the recent ethnic and religious crises in Jos to "unleash violence" on Maiduguri residents through a supposed Jihad (holy war).

Sources from the Borno State police command further claimed that the sect members had whipped up religious sentiments on the need to avenge the alleged killing of Muslims in the central state of the north as means of winning people's support for their heinous crimes against humanity.

According to the police source, "some of the fundamentalists had infiltrated the commercial motorcyclists in the state, pretending to be Okada operators while targeting their unsuspected passengers, who may not share their extreme religious ideology.

As such, many have restrained from patronising the commercial cyclists at dusk, while residents often scurry home early from their various engagements."

This, according to the Borno State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Adamu Isa Azare, an Assistant Superintend of Police (ASP), prompted all security agents in the state, to mount security measures against the alleged infiltrations of some Boko Haram sect members into the state.

He said the police was only trying to be very proactive to forestall any possible outbreak of law and order, particularly in view of the ethno-religious crises in Plateau State.

Azare disclosed that the threat text messages sent to some people in the state, announcing the readiness of the sect members to launch an attack had prompted the police to strengthen and reinforce its surveillance in the state.

Azare said: "We are not (sure) if it is Boko Haram per se, because some people we are yet to identify were just sending text messages to people that there were going to be attacks. For this reason, we stepped up our security apparatus as proactive measures to ensure we were not caught unawares. We want to ensure the people are well policed. We don't want to take anything for granted."

While describing the sources of the text messages as mischief makers, who he claimed to be out to create confusion among the people, the police spokesman said that the police were ready to nip in the bud any attempt to disturb the existing peace in the state.

He added: "That is why we place our men and officers on alert. We also embark on 'show of force' to scare, intimidate and weaken the strength of would-be-trouble-makers.""

He, therefore, urged the general public to fully cooperate with the police and other security agents by providing useful information on strange movement of people in the metropolis and other communities in the state.

[Description of Source: Lagos The Guardian Online in English -- Website of the widely read independent daily, aimed at up-market readership; URL: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/]

Nigeria: Police Fined for Killing Sect Leader's Father-in-law

AFP20100414650003 Paris AFP (World Service) in English 1244 GMT 14 Apr 10

KANO, Nigeria, April 14, 2010 (AFP) - A Nigerian court has ordered police to pay 100 million naira (666,400 dollars) in damages to the family of the father-in-law of a slain Islamic militant leader who was himself also killed, officials said Wednesday.

Baba Fugu Mohammed -- father-in-law of Mohammed Yusuf, the slain leader of the Boko Haram sect -- was allegedly killed after surrendering himself to the police in Maiduguri in the aftermath of the sect's rebellion last July in which more than 800 people were killed.

The Boko Haram leader was killed by the police shortly after his capture.

Court officials said a state high court in Maiduguri, capital of northeastern Borno State, on Tuesday ordered the police authorities to compensate Baba Fugu's family for the killing.

"Apart from the 100 million naira damages, the court also ordered the police to exhume the body of Baba Fugu Mohammed from wherever it was buried and hand it over to the family for a proper burial in accordance with Islamic rites," court official Bukar Zanna told AFP.

The court also ordered the police to offer a public apology to Baba Fugu's family, he said.

The judgement followed a suit filed by Baba Fugu's eldest son, Babakura Fugu, in February against the police and President Umaru Musa Yar'adua for the killing of his father, who was 72 when he was killed.

A father of 27, Baba Fugu was Yusuf's father-in-law for 10 years.

"We are happy with this judgement which I believe will go a long way in assuaging the pains the family has been going through since the death of our father in the hands of the police," Babakura Fugu, a school teacher, told AFP.

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (World Service) in English -- world news service of the independent French news agency Agence France Presse]

Nigeria: Police To Pay Damages Over Killing of Islamic Militant Leader

AFP20100414646003 Paris AFP (World Service) in English 1455 GMT 14 Apr 10

Nigerian police to pay damages over killing

KANO, Nigeria, April 14, 2010 (AFP) - A Nigerian court has ordered police to pay 100 million naira (666,400 dollars) in damages to relatives of a slain Islamic militant leader, officials said Wednesday.

Baba Fugu Mohammed -- father-in-law of Mohammed Yusuf, the slain leader of the Boko Haram sect -- was killed after allegedly surrendering to police in Maiduguri in the aftermath of the sect's rebellion last July in which more than 800 people were killed.

The Boko Haram leader was killed by police shortly after his capture.

Court officials said a state high court in Maiduguri, capital of northeastern Borno State, on Tuesday ordered the police authorities to compensate Baba Fugu's family for the killing.

"Apart from the 100 million naira damages, the court also ordered the police to exhume the body of Baba Fugu Mohammed from wherever it was buried and hand it over to the family for a proper burial in accordance with Islamic rites," court official Bukar Zanna told AFP.

The court also ordered the police to offer a public apology to the family, he said.

The judgement followed a suit filed by Baba Fugu's eldest son, Babakura Fugu, in February against the police and President Umaru Musa Yar'adua for the killing of his father, who was 72.

"We are happy with this judgement which I believe will go a long way in assuaging the pain the family has been going through since the death of our father in the hands of the police," Babakura Fugu, a school teacher, told AFP.

Police believed Baba Fugu provided Yusuf with land on which he built the mosque which became the militant sect's base for its short-lived armed rebellion.

"Our father gave out one of his daughters in marriage to Mohammed Yusuf and the land long before Boko Haram came into existence," Fugu added.

abu/joa/ade/db/lt

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (World Service) in English -- world news service of the independent French news agency Agence France Presse]

Nigeria: Borno State Signs Order Declaring Islamic Group Dangerous to Government

AFP20100508565007 Abuja Daily Trust Online in English 2300 GMT 07 May 10

[Report by Isa Umar Gusau: "Sheriff Signs Order Declaring Boko Haram Threat to Govt"]

Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno state has signed an order which declares the Boko haram Islamic sect a society that is dangerous to government, making it unlawful for anyone to belong to the sect or practice its ideologies in the state.

Shehu Mustapha Liberty, Special Adviser to the Governor on Information and Media, said in a statement issued to journalists in Maiduguri yesterday, that the order was recommended by a committee set up to investigate the July, 2009 crises in the state between an Islamic sect opposed to western education called Boko Haram and security agents, resulting in the death of hundreds of people and destruction of properties. Liberty said Sheriff made the order on Wednesday, May 5, 2010.

[Description of Source: Abuja Daily Trust Online in English -- Website of the independent pro-North daily; URL: http://www.news.dailytrust.com/]

Nigeria: Borno State Governor Ali Mudu Sherif Outlawed Boko Haram Islamic Sect

AFP20100511614006 Lagos Lagos Ray Power in English 0900 GMT 10 May 10

Governor Ali Mudu Sheriff of Borno State has signed an order which declared the Boko Haram Islamic sect a threat to government in the state.

In a statement signed by the special adviser on information and media, Sheu Mustapha, Governor Ali Mudu Sherif ordered the Boko Haram also known as Yusufia Society dangerous to the government of Borno State.

Correspondent Ifianyi Mark reports that with the order, it is now unlawful for any one to belong to the sect.

The order could be coming on the heels of the recommendations of a committee set up to investigate the July 2009 crisis in the state between the Islamic sect opposed to western education and security agencies which resulted in the destruction of properties and the death of hundreds of people in Borno State.

[Description of Source: Lagos Ray Power 2 Radio in English -- Privately owned independent radio]

French agency ponders threat of Al-Qa'idah overtures to Nigerian Islamists

EUP20100614950014 Paris AFP (Domestic Service) in French 0904 GMT 14 Jun 10

French agency ponders threat of Al-Qa'idah overtures to Nigerian Islamists

Excerpt from report by Michel Moutot by the French news agency AFP

Nouakchott, 14 June 2010: Initial contacts between jihadis in the Sahel and Islamists in Nigeria have been established, say experts in the region who feat an alliance between these extremists could post a threat to the most populated country in Africa.

With some 150m inhabitants, equally divided between Christians and Muslims, Nigeria is the theatre of recurrent episodes of violence with ethnic and religious overtones that have left hundreds dead since the start of the year.

The emir of Al-Qa'idah in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb, Algerian Abou Moussab Abdel Wadoud [Abu Mus'ab Abd al-Wadud], has set about establishing relations with Boko Haram, a violent Islamic sect, known as the "Taleban", which regularly challenges the authorities in Abuja.

With his dream of expanding his zone of action to the south, the emir, also known as Abdelmalek Droukdal, appealed via the Internet at the beginning of February to the "Muslims of Nigeria".

"We are ready to train your sons to use weapons and to provide them with all the aid it is possible to give to enable them to defend our people in Nigeria," he told them, "and to repel the hostility of the crusader minority."

His offer of help should, moreover, be taken seriously, according to sources questioned by AFP in Mauritania, Algeria and Europe.

In Nouakchott, a magistrate who is an expert on the issue and wishes to remain anonymous, says: "The decision to contact Nigeria's Taleban has been taken and for the AQLIM men in the Sahel, who move easily around the region, particularly in Niger which borders northern Nigeria, it's not difficult."

A Western diplomat serving in the capital of Mauritania adds: "There have been tentative contacts between AQLIM and the Taleban. People meet and talk to one another."

"It's interesting for the Taleban: the Al-Qa'idah franchise is prestigious, it's a big organization that can boast of its successes," he adds.

[Passage omitted: Origins of the Boko Haram sect]

French researcher Jean-Pierre Filiu, author of a report for the US Carnegie think tank, entitled "Could Al-Qa'idah Turn African in the Sahel?" believes that "even if violence in Nigeria has local rather than imported causes, Droukdal's offer of assistance gave the impression that Nigeria has become the main concern for AQLIM".

For the moment, he adds, only a handful of individuals, "grass-roots members have joined AQLIM from Nigeria (...) and these adherences have come more through criminal deviancy or mafia networks than out of shared ideology".

If this collusion becomes more concrete, however, it poses a serious threat, believes Algerian journalist Mohamed Mokkadem, a specialist in jihadism and the author of the book, "Les Afghans algeriens" [Algerian Afghans].

"This alliance, if it does emerge in the weeks or months ahead, will upset the entire region (...) The Nigerians have men and money. If they really do form an alliance, they will be an enormous danger."

At the end of March, Boko Haram threatened in an interview to AFP to take its actions out of Nigeria, including to the United States.

"Islam does not recognize international borders, we are going to carry out actions (...) everywhere in the world if we have the chance," its spokesman, Musa Tanko, said at the time in Kano (in the north).

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (Domestic Service) in French -- domestic service of independent French press agency]

Al-Jazirah: Experts Warn of Alliance Between Al-Qa'ida, Nigeria's Boko Haram

GMP20100615676001 Doha Al-Jazirah Satellite Channel Television in Arabic 0813 GMT 15 Jun 10

[Announcer-read report over video. For assistance with multimedia elements, contact OSC at (800) 205-8615 or OSCinfo@rccb.osis.gov.]

Experts in Islamic groups' affairs have warned of a possible alliance between the Al-Qa'ida Organization in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb [AQLIM] and Taliban-Nigeria, saying that Abu-Mus'ab Abd-al-Wadud, AQLIM Algerian leader, had already contacted Nigeria's Boko Haram last February. For its part, Boko Haram threatened to expand its operations abroad as to attack foreign interests, including US targets.

[Begin recording of a video report by Abd-al-Haqq al-Sahasih] Al-Qa'ida has set eyes on the Sub-Saharan Africa as a strategic asset that will allow it greater mobility and will provide it with another long-awaited battle field.