Boko Haram in Benin Confirms the Islamist War moving into the Rest of West Africa

Bokok Haram  has now moved Islamist Civil war from Nigeria into Both Cameroon and Benin. This confirms the strategic move of the Islamist movement into the war - Jihad - phase in West Africa.

They appear to have been setting up Dawa schools into remote Muslim communities, and to eventually radicalize them. Based on this premise, and Boko Haram's past geographical network, terrorism analysts need to begin looking into Dawas being set up in

• Burkina Faso
• Ghana
• Togo
• Liberia

Ivory Coast is a different Story; they fought their religious civil war already, but watch for foreign Dawa s being planted into Muslim tribal areas, and watch for the persoecuation of Christian's in those areas.

-Shimron Issachar

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A mosque and Islamic school have been attacked and set alight in the southern Nigerian city of Benin, police say.

• A Nigerian Red Cross spokesman told the BBC that five people had been killed and six injured.
• It follows a separate attack on a different mosque in the city on Monday.
• In recent weeks, southerners, who are mostly Christians or animists, have been the targets of deadly attacks by the Islamist Boko Haram group, which operates in the mainly Muslim north.
• A leader of the Hausa community in Benin told the BBC's Hausa Service that 7,000 northerners were seeking refuge in police and army barracks in the city.

The Nigerian Red Cross confirmed to the BBC that they were registering northerners at police stations and  Two cars at the centre housing the mosque and Islamic school were also torched, police said.

The attack is the latest in a spiral of sectarian violence that has seen many southerners living in the north flee their homes.

• The BBC's Naziru Mikailu in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, said the latest violence started in Benin on Monday when a group attacked a mosque, leaving 10 people injured.
• Then, in Gusau, capital of northern Zamfara state, youths attacked a church. Police made 19 arrests, our reporter says.
• Back in Benin on Tuesday, a mosque and Islamic centre were attacked and set alight in a different area from Monday's attack. Police told the BBC that 10 people had been arrested.
• A group of youths tried to attack a Hausa community leader's house but it was defended by Hausa youths and the police then intervened, our reporter says.

Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka blamed the violence of recent months on leaders who put their own religion above national unity. He said the situation was not dissimilar to the one that existed before the last civil war that erupted in Biafra in the 1960s.

"We see the nation heading towards civil war. We know that the civil war was preceded by problems - serious killings on both sides of the regional divide," he told the BBC.

"When you get a situation when a bunch of people can go into a place of worship and open fire through the windows you've reached a certain dismal watershed in the life of that nation.

"There's no question at all, whatsoever. Those who have created this faceless army have lost control of that army."

The latest unrest comes on the second day of a general strike over the removal of a fuel subsidy.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in many cities in protest about the doubling of the price of petrol since the beginning of the year. Six people died in the unrest on Monday.

The Rest @ African Seer

Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom

Naser Jason Abdo was arrested at America’s Best Value Inn on South Fort Hood Street in Killeen, TX only about 3 miles from the front gate at Foot Hood on an outstanding warrant for child pornography and for being AWOL (absent without leave) from Fort Campbell, Ky.

When his hotel room was searched police found a lot more than child porn. Fox News reported,

Authorities said they found two clocks, spools of auto wire, Winchester .40 caliber ammunition and a handgun in a backpack, according to court documents. They also discovered an article titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom,” the same title of a how-to article featured in Inspire, the English-language magazine by the terror group based in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Senegal Muslims Becoming Radicalized

It looks like Senegal may be moving from a Tier One to a Tier Two level in Islamist Radicalization.

The following article notes that Muslims in Senegal are becoming increasingly hostile toward non-Muslims groups, specifically Christian. The author assumes that it is a result of AQIM activity. Though it's possible that AQIM is behind it, I would not rule out Boko Haram from Nigeria.

An investigator needs to look at at least three other sources as well:

1. NGO/Religious Dawa' visits to Senegal over the last 3-5 years, especially groups out of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. (See "Alms for Jihad" list)

2. Hizbolla has been running logistics through Senegal for years; see if Iran has had contact with current radicalized groups.

3. Any connections to Ivory Coast? Now that Muslim politics have succeeded there, are there experienced agitators from there that have moved into Senegal?

7/13/2011 - Senegal has a long standing reputation for democratic stability and harmonious relations with non-Muslim people.Recent attacks on Christian Churches and violent and intimidating actions against English speaking Christian immigrants from other West African Countries are therefore completely contrary to Senegalese custom and practice.

• Consequently,there is now a growing feeling on the ground in Senegal that elements of the AQIM have infiltrated anti-government groups to instigate violence at political demonstrations and to stir up inter-faith conflict.
• This feeling has grown over the weekend with eye witness reports of further acts of intimidation and violence towards African Christians, in Yoff, Grand Yoff, Cicap, and parts of The Medina which are suburbs of Dakar, the capital of Senegal.
• All these suburbs have a high concentration of English speaking, Christian African Immigrants.

The AQIM has developed from a small insurgency into an expanding terrorist organization within the Sahel region of Africa.Large parts of Mauritania,Mali,Niger,and Southern Algeria are now effectively under their control.These are also key transportation areas for drug cartels and commercial scale human trafficking gangs.

Apart from French Foreign Minister Alan Juppe and The President of Mauritania Mohamed Aziz,politicians have largely ignored the threat that the AQIM pose in Africa, and it is more than likely that the size of the membership of the AQIM has been severely underestimated.

The current President of Senegal,Abdoulay Wade, retires in 2012 as he has served the maximum term in office under the Senegalese Constitution. The AQIM may have seen an opportunity to expliot an uncertain political situation and expand their area of operation into Senegal.

The Rest @ BriefingWire.com,

Egyptian Cleric - Jihad as A source of Revenue

posted by Translating Jihad

Tuesday, May 31, 2011