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

The second video shows the "martyr" for an attack at police headquarters in Abuja in June, when at least two people were killed.

The videos refer to the group by a name roughly translated as "People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad," as a previous video has done.

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

Nigeria: Muslim Clerics Deny WikiLeaks Reports on Involvement With Islamic Sect

AFP20110918565004 Lagos The Guardian Online in English 2300 GMT 17 Sep 11

[Report by Saxone Akhaine: "Cleric Denies Links To Sect"]

Islamic Clerics and management of the Yahaya Road mosque in Kaduna have denied reports by Wikileaks and a northern-based media of their romance with Boko Haram.

Chairman of the mosque, Alhaji Garba Ibrahim, said it was unfortunate that the Wikileaks and newspaper portrayed the mosque as a facilitator in organizing and hypnotizing students by teaching them Islamic extremism.

"Ordinarily, this ought not to bother us in view of the source of the information, the United States, leader of the Western Nations against Islam and Muslims, but for the records, and to re-assure parents and the government of Kaduna State that the report is nothing but a tissue of lies," they said.

Their statement explained that it was curious that a mosque situated in the Government Reservation Area (GRA) in the neighborhood of serving and retired top public officers, both Muslims and non-Muslims would undertake unlawful activities unnoticed except to the eyes and ears of the American Embassy.

"We started our religious programmes here as far back as 1978 when approval to us was granted by the state government through the JNI. The school was opened in November 1979 with 25 pupils," they said.

"An Islamic association known as 'Association for the propagation of Islam' that was founded in 1979, designed the curriculum and syllabus to be taught in the school."

The said the mosque had a pilot programme where children were taught how to memorize the Holy Qur'an and later, approval was granted the mosque by the Emir of Zazzau, Dr. Shehu Idris, to be conducting both Jumu'at and Eid prayers.

The mosque's management, however, urged Nigerians to visit the place of worship and see things for themselves.

"Rather than being cowed by the malicious American report, it had strengthened their faith and commitment to observe and propagate all the tenets of Islam within the Shari'ah and laws of our country," they said.

[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: Islamic Sect Reportedly Releases 2 Videos on Alleged UN Office Bomber

AFP20110920565001 Isheri Nigerian Compass Online in English 2300 GMT 18 Sep 11

[Unattributed report: "Boko Haram Releases Two Videos of UN House Bombers"]

He is soft-spoken and believed to have been a mechanic with a family in Maiduguri, Borno State.

Mohammed Abul Barra, now late was most happy at what he considered as a rare privilege of carrying out his assignment.

When a question was put on who would offer to carry out an attack on the United Nations building in Abuja by the leadership of the dreaded Boko Haram, many members of the sect volunteered.

Only one person was needed and a lot had to be cast. It fell on Barra. He was elated at the "good fortune" of being the one to carry out the deadly assignment, which he knew would consume him first, and blow him into smithreens. Yet, he gave no thought for his wife and son.

He most enthusiastically agreed to a video recording of what would be one of his last days on earth.

That tape was one of two videos that Agence France Presse (AFP) yesterday claimed that it had received.

The videos are of people who believe that they have nothing to live for, but everything to die for.

The hunt for the brains behind the group continued yesterday as the State Security Services (SSS) placed a N25m ransom on the suspected mastermind of the UN house bombing.

A statement in Abuja, signed by Ms Marilyn Ogar, Assistant Director, Public Relations of the SSS, said the suspect remained on the wanted list.

"A reward of N25 million is being offered for information that could lead directly to the apprehension or conviction of Mamman Nur," the statement read, adding: "If you have any information concerning this person, please contact the nearest police station, military formation or any other security agencies."

In the tape, Barra who eventually carried out the August 26 of the UN building in Abuja, says that his action is a warning to United States President Barack Obama "and other infidels."

The two videos obtained by AFP are said to be from the Boko Haram and come as concern intensifies over whether the sect has formed links with outside groups such as Al-Qaeda's north African branch. The possibility of such links has led to deep concern among Western nations and mounting pressure on the Federal Government.

Barely 48 hours after hosting former President Olusegun Obasanjo to a peace meeting, a leader of the sect Babakura Alhaji Fugu was killed on Saturday by a lone gunman. The sect immediately claimed responsibility for the incident.

The two videos said to be from the group include speeches totaling some 25 minutes from the alleged UN bomber.

It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the videos, but they seem to offer a window into the Islamist terrorism that the group has adopted.

The videos, according to AFP, bear hallmarks of past Boko Haram clips and feature speeches by a man identified as Abubakar Shekau, its suspected leader who went into hiding following a 2009 uprising by the group put down by a military assault.

The videos also show an international emphasis.

The speeches are mostly in the Hausa language which widely spoken in the North. They also spoke partly in Arabic.

The voice said to be Shekau's calls the UN headquarters a "forum of all the global evil," while also offering praise for Osama bin Laden.

The video focusing on the UN bombing, which killed at least 23 people and was among the deadliest targeting the world body, is more than an hour and 15 minutes long.

During much of his time on the video, Barra holds an AK-47 while two others lean against the wall.

Two gas canisters are on the floor at his feet.

He is rail-thin and wears a striped, polo-style shirt, a turban and what looks to be a suicide vest.

In a phone interview with AFP, a man who claimed to be a spokesman for the sect identified Barra as a married auto repair worker with a son from Maiduguri, where the group has carried out most of its attacks.

His name was picked in a draw because a number of others also wanted to carry out the mission, according to the spokesman, who identified himself as Abu Q aqa.

Boko Haram's supposed foreign links as well as the origin of its backing is controversial in Nigeria - as is whether it was truly behind the UN attack.

The State Security Service (SSS) claimed in the days after the UN attack that an Al-Qaeda-linked suspect who recently returned from Somalia named Mamman Nur masterminded the blast. He was declared wanted.

Nur was believed to be third-in-command of Boko Haram when it launched the 2009 uprising.

In one of the videos, reference is also made to an attempted attack on police headquarters in Maiduguri on August 15 and an image is shown of the man said to be the bomber, who was killed by authorities before the explosives detonated.

Photos of the man killed by police taken by journalists bear a resemblance to the person in the video.

The second video shows the "martyr" for an attack at police headquarters in Abuja in June, when at least two people were killed.

The videos refer to the group by a name roughly translated as "People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad," as a previous video has done.

In the video, Shekau is flanked by his body guards, as he reels out his group's position on the government's olive branch.

It says the government has not fulfilled the terms of reconciliation as enunciated in the holy Qur'an.

Shekau was also reported by an online medium, News diary, to have announced in a video clip on Friday that the government must not expect his group to lay down its arms when its members are being hunted down and killed and ordinary people are being traumatised in Maiduguri city.

If true, it would be the first time that the group, whose official name is Jama'atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lidda'awati Wal Jihad, is releasing a video showing its leader.

The man identified in the five-minute video clip as Imam Abu Muhammad Abubakar Bin Muhammad Shekau was actually named by Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf as his deputy when the latter was being interrogated by soldiers after his capture in 2009. Yusuf was executed at the Borno State police headquarters allegedly by his police handlers, who are now being prosecuted at a court in Abuja for the killing.

The prosecution is regarded as part of the steps being taken by the Jonathan administration to mollify the militant group and end the bloodshed.

But Shekau claimed in the new video that whereas Islam has enjoined reconciliation between two warring parties, it has specified the conditions that must be met before such reconciliation can take place, pointing out that a non-Islamic system cannot impose conditions for reconciliation on Muslims.

Quoting from the Qur'an, he explained: "We know that in the Qur'an there are verses where it is said: 'If you are offered reconciliation, you should accept it,' but there are verses in the Qur'an where it is said: 'If you are offered reconciliation, don't accept it.'

"We know where those verses apply... We know them all; we have read them in the Qur'an. We are fully aware that in Islam there is a provision for reconciliation, but there are conditions for reconciliation. Only a Muslim knows when to reconcile with a non-Muslim; it is not the non-Muslim who should impose conditions for reconciliation on the Muslim."

The Boko Haram leader pointed out that while the government was talking about reconciliation, it is at the same time persecuting the members of his group and other Muslims.

He claimed, for example, that the government has not done anything to punish those who allegedly massacred Muslims in Zonkwa, Kaduna State, during the sectarian violence following the general elections in April, and has been secretly torturing and killing Boko Haram members in the prisons and burying them in mass graves.

"You must not deceive us," he told the government in the controversial video clip.

"We know all the nonsense going on in this country. They claim that they want to reconcile with us, yet they poison our brothers to death and then bury the m in a mass grave," he added. "Right now we know what they are doing to our brothers in the prisons. We are aware of how they are persecuting the ordinary people in the city.

"They just want to satisfy themselves and persuade the people into believing that an offer of reconciliation was given to us and we rejected it."

The militant leader also decried the way government officials appear divided over the government's peace moves in the Boko Haram matter, saying, "Look at the way some of them talk, 'Let us find these people and reconcile with them,' but others from amongst them say, 'Why bother about the wishes of these people? The best way to deal with these people, who are just making empty threats, is to just finish them off.'

"An instance is that the Police Chief has mouthed what he wanted to say and God has shown him that He is the Most Powerful. And another one of them, the Army Chief, has said what he wanted to say.

"Now, you can see that even among themselves they don't know exactly what to do about us. So, why should we be deceived by their utterances and abandon what God has commanded us to do?

"There is no talk of us abandoning what God says, much less be deceived by their utterances; even they are not really united on what to do with us."

Shekau also denied that his group's attack on the military barracks in Bauchi in which five people were killed was carried out in order to kill civilians, saying as a matter of principle the Boko Haram does not target civilians.

He said: "We do not kill those who drink alcohol. It is mere propaganda that we attacked a beer parlour. We had heard that it was purely soldiers who gathered there to drink, and we confirmed it, that was why we went there and killed them.

"It's mere propaganda that we attacked a beer joint so that people would accuse us of killing innocent people, so that it would be said that Allah forbids the killing of consumers of alcohol, that there is a way to deal with such people."

According to Shekau, the Boko Haram will continue fighting this war because it understood that it is the best way to earn its dignity and serve the interest of Islam.

"We understood from the Book sent to the Prophet Muhammad that there is no better way to earn our dignity than through the path God tells us to follow, that is holy war," he remarked, adding, "Nobody is persecuting us like this government which regards itself as secular, and is concerned only with nation-building. Nobody is persecuting our religion and our Prophet like it. They use their soldiers, their police, their system of unbelief and their collaborators."

However, he assured the ordinary people that his group will not harm them, arguing that their target is the government, its security forces and anybody the group regards as a collaborator.

He said: "We are just fighting those who are fighting us, soldiers and police and the rest; and anybody, even if he is a learned Muslim teacher, if we confirm that he exposes us to the government, his children will become orphans and his wife will become a widow, God's willing. That is our way."

In the video clip, Shekau is shown sitting on the floor with a bodyguard each on his sides. All three of them are dressed in fighting gear and each holds an AK-47 rifle. While Shekau's face was not covered, his bodyguards covered theirs with handkerchiefs.

Shekau's commentary, rendered in Hausa, is interspersed with readings from the Qur'an and video and still picture images of the war between the Boko Haram and the Nigerian security forces.

In another video, dated Monday July 25, 200 by the news medium, Shekau is said to have declared that his group would never give up its cause.

That video, according to it, is 15 minutes, 39 seconds long. It opens with a recitation from the holy Qur'an, the part of which is rendered in Arabic on the screen. Then there is a static logo of the group. Recitation fades out. On the screen, an inscription comes up in Hausa, which translates as, " Department of Public Awareness, Jama'atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lidda'awati Wal Jihad presents to you ... 'A Lecture On Reconciliation'." As recitation from the Qur'an resumes, video clips of the 2009 violence in Maiduguri are shown: Buji Foi, the former commissioner of religious affairs in Borno State under the last administration, is seen being executed at the state police headquarters; and dead bodies of Boko Haram members.

Recitation fades out as video of three men sitting on the floor, against a wall, fades in. It is daytime. A lizard occasionally passes on the wall, just above the men. Apparently, the scene is in a house near a street in a major town because sounds of traffic and voices can be heard in the background. The three men are sitting lotus-style, each nursing an AK-47 rifle. They are dressed in fighting gear, which includes military tunics. All three are young, aged probably between 30 and 45. They remind one of the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan or Palestine.

While the two men on either side of the one in the middle have their faces covered with handkerchiefs, the middle one has not hidden his identity. He is the leader of the group. He holds a sheaf of papers in his left hand, from which he reads a statement. His two bodyguards remain motionless throughout the rendition, conveying a menacing presence. Occasionally, the leader looks up from his papers to expatiate on his address. He speaks in Hausa.

The leader is identified with an inscription in the video as "Imam Abu Muhammad Abubakar Bin Muhammad Shekau, Imamu Jama'atu Ahlissunati Lidda'awati wal-Jihad."

It gives a translation of the statement and comments made by Shekau in the video thus: "My brethren in the Religion, peace be unto you. I remind you of what the almighty Allah reminded His most beloved messenger after His other prophets, that is the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). (Quotes from the Qur'an in Arabic and translates: "Remember, when you are harmed and are being persecuted from all quarters, and you don't know where to go, and then Allah brings you together, strengthens you, gives you wealth - a legalised wealth, not for anything but in order for you to show gratitude with your your utterances, and with your heart, and your actions. That is how the sons of Adam should show gratitude to their Creator.)

"O my brethren! Know that Allah has enjoined us in His Book (Quotes from the Qur'an in Arabic and translates): O you who believe! You should fear God the way you should. It means you should obey God the way He commands you to do. (Quotes again). It means you should not allow yourselves to leave this world unless you are true Muslims. May we finish in faith!

"The Muslims and the rest of the world should know that we are in this task only in order to defend our religion, the grace of our Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who is insulted in some places and is disgraced in other places; I swear, we rose in arms in order to defend our religion, the dignity of our Prophet and the lives and property of fellow Muslims who are always being killed and or persecuted by unbelievers. They are being persecuted and killed and at the end they are blamed and disgraced. I swear, that is what we are fighting against.

"We understood from the Book sent to the Prophet Muhammad that there is no better way to earn our dignity than through the path God tells us to follow, that is holy war.

"Nobody is persecuting us like this government which regards itself as secular, and is concerned only with nation-building. Nobody is persecuting our religion and our Prophet like it. They use their soldiers, their police, their system of unbelief and their collaborators.

"Look at the way some of them talk, 'Let us find these people and reconcile with them,' but others from amongst them say, 'Why bother about the wishes of these people? The best way to deal with these people, who are just making empty threats, it to just finish them off.' An instance is that the Police Chief has mouthed what he wanted to say and God has shown him that He is the Most Powerful. (Clips of Inspector of Police Hafiz Ringim and the bombing of Police Headquarters) And another one of them, the Army Chief, has said what he wanted to say. (Clip of soldiers on patrol) Now, you can see that even among themselves they don't know exactly what to do about us. (Clip of President Jonathan) So, why should we be deceived by their utterances and abandon what God has commanded us to do? There is no talk of us abandoning what God says, much less be deceived by their utterances; even they are not really united on what to do with us.

"O people! You should know that we do not have any ulterior motive in this job apart from serving Islam. (Quotes in Arabic) And don't think that because we say "Islam," it simply means prayers, paying the poor due (Zakkat), Hajj or fasting; no, these are rituals that are integral parts of Islam. But you should know that Jihad, the holy war, as well as migration from where you are being persecuted to where you can worship God easily is also Islam; to give your wealth out in the cause of God is also Islam; indeed, every aspect of co-habitation such as trading, farming, mode of dressing, and even friendship are Islam. All our lives are governed by Islam. The foundation of Islam is Tauheed; whoever lacks Tauheed is like saying he is not with you. That is why Allah (SWT) says if you are going to be practising religion, then, all of you must join Islam. (Quotes from the Qur'an in Arabic, translates thus: "O you who believe! You must join the religion in whole") That's what Allah almighty says. But He also warns that you must not follow the Satan's path, the Satan's system. That is why we say that we will not follow a government of unbelief. We will only follow a government of Allah as governed by the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

"We did not come out (to fight) but for the sake of Allah. By God, we shall not do anything but what Allah has commanded us to do. And we did not leave our hometowns and our relatives, I swear, but for the sake of Allah.

"What we ultimately aspire for is to be matyred, I swear, on this path of God. That is our ultimate wish. But you (security forces) are afraid to die! So, you should not go and be saying that we are simply scaring people stiff, that we don't have the courage to fight you face-to-face. Well, you are not the one who should teach us how to fight. This our way of fighting which you are seeing, we read it in our Book, we did not copy your own style. We don't discriminate or try to brag, we are just looking at Allah's religion. We are proud of our Creator. And any day we feel that we should go out and face you in the fight, you will see. Even a ram could be stronger than us in a different circumstance, but when we decided to fight in the cause of God, we see you as mere ants. I swear, even your American helpers are not enough! God is with us; therefore, you who calls yourself Chief of Army Staff, (sniggers) go and do your worst! There is nothing you can do against Allah.

"The only thing I will tell you is that you should repent. Return to the Way of God and practise Islam. Don't think you are somebody. I swear, there is nothing people will give you, and at the end you would be the loser; you would be killed for nothing and at the end you would be cast into Hellfire. That is for sure.

"And, you people should know that we do not kill those who drink alcohol. It is mere propaganda that we attacked a beer parlour. We had heard that it was purely soldiers who gathered there to drink, and we confirmed it, that was why we went there and killed them. (Clips of soldiers and policemen) It's mere propaganda that we attacked a beer joint so that people would accuse us of killing innocent people, so that it would be said that Allah forbids the killing of consumers of alcohol, that there is a way to deal with such people. No, we don't kill drinkers of alcohol; neither do we steal people's property. That is not our job.

Also, we don't kill a Muslim; if you hear that we have killed a Muslim, we must have found out that he was collaborating with the unbelievers. That is what we do; that is what the religion of Allah provides for us. It is not somebody's order we are following.

"We know that in the Qur'an there are verses where it is said: 'If you are offered reconciliation, you should accept it,' but there are verses in the Qur'an where it is said: 'If you are offered reconciliation, don't accept it.' We know where those verses apply. (Quotes from the Qur'an in Arabic) We know them all; we have read them in the Qur'an. We are fully aware that in Islam there is a provision for reconciliation, but there are conditions for reconciliation. Only a Muslim knows when to reconcile with a non-Muslim; it is not the non-Muslim who should impose conditions for reconciliation on the Muslim. And we are Muslims.

"As far as the ordinary people are concerned, by God, we want happy increase for them. We are being persecuted. Even recently, in a village in Kaduna State (Zonkwa) Muslims were pushed into a dug-out hole and petrol was poured on them before they were set ablaze. What did your government do about this? (Clips of burnt bodies). You must not deceive us. You should not deceive us! We know all the nonsense going on in this country. They claim that they want to reconcile with us, yet they poison our brothers to death and then bury them in a mass grave. Right now we know what they are doing to our brothers in the prisons. We are aware of how they are persecuting the ordinary people in the city. They just want to satisfy themselves and persuade the people into believing that an offer of reconciliation was given to us and we rejected it. You shouldn't do that.