Nigeria Was Aware of 2007 AQIM - Boko Haram Link

Abuja - Nigeria detained and released several radical Muslims suspected of being terrorists in 2007 - including a man who officials now say helped organise last week's deadly car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in the nation's capital, a high-ranking official told The Associated Press. The men arrested four years ago had allegedly been caught with explosives.

• Their rapid release from detention was apparently aimed at placating Muslim groups, but it has now come back to haunt security officials who fear a growing wave of al-Qaeda-linked terror attacks in Nigeria, a main supplier of oil to the United States.

Some of those arrested in October 2007 were even plotting to carry out attacks in the United States and to attack American targets here, in Africa's most populous country, said the official, who claimed direct knowledge of the arrests. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to the political sensitivity of the case and because he is not authorised to discuss the matter with journalists.

Nigeria remains very sensitive to any suggestion it is a haven for terrorists, and the information released at the time of the arrests was fairly vague. It was not immediately clear if Nigeria shared information about the purported anti-US plots with US officials. The US embassy had no immediate comment on Thursday.

However, in a report on global terror threats, the State Department said diplomats issued a warning to US citizens in 2007 about possible attacks on US and Western interests in Nigeria. It also noted that Nigerian authorities said they arrested at least 10 suspected terrorists in northern Nigeria late that year with alleged ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Hasty sham trials

A former US ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, who left the country several months before the 2007 arrests, said Pakistanis would have stood out in northern Nigeria. Campbell, who is now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said he had no information about arrests of any Pakistanis.

Top security officials in the administration of then-President Umaru Yar'Adua, a Muslim, released the rounded-up men shortly after their arrests, with some facing a few hasty sham trials, the Nigerian official said.

One of those men was Babagana Ismail Kwaljima, also known as Abu Summaya, who was arrested again days before the August 26 bombing at the UN compound in Abuja that killed at least 23 people, the Nigerian official said.

• Kwaljima is accused of helping mastermind the UN bombing.
• A second man was also arrested and
• Police are looking for a third with "al-Qaeda links" who recently travelled in Somalia, where an al-Qaeda-linked group called al-Shabaab is battling the beleaguered UN-backed government.

Kwaljima is being held at a military base in Nigeria, according to Nigeria's secret police.

• The agency previously arrested him in October 2007 in the northern city of Kano during a roundup of suspected members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operating in the country, the official who spoke to AP said.
• Aqim, as the group is known, generally operates in Saharan nations north of Nigeria.

Terror attacks

Secret police spokesperson Marilyn Ogar declined to comment on Thursday.

• Suspected Pakistani members of al-Qaeda were arrested in October 2007 along with members of Aqim, the official said.
• He did not provide numbers of people arrested. News reports that emerged in November 2007 about arrests in the area also did not specify numbers, but identified the men as Nigerians. No foreigners were mentioned.

The official told AP that Aqim was planning to carry out terror attacks against targets in the United States and the Pakistanis were plotting terror attacks against US citizens working in Nigeria, which is divided into a mainly Christian south and Muslim north.

"They were caught with explosive devices and other ammunitions. Some of them were also caught with large amount of cash," the Nigerian official said.

Responsibility for the August 26 attack on the UN, in which 81 people were wounded, was claimed by a sect known as Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language. The sect, which wants to implement a strict version of Shariah law in the nation, operates in the north and reportedly has links to Aqim and al-Shabaab.

The car used in the UN bombing was registered in the same area of Kano state where the terror suspects had been arrested only four years earlier, the official who spoke to the AP said.

Other problems

• In 2003, Osama bin Laden issued an audio tape calling on Muslims in Nigeria to rise up against one of the "regimes who are slaves of America".
• It wasn't until four years later that strategic links were made between Aqim and Boko Haram, according to Noman Benotman, a former jihadist with links to al-Qaeda and an analyst at the London-based Quilliam Foundation.
• Meanwhile, ties with the Somali militant group seem to have grown stronger.

Some 50 al-Shabaab members were arrested in Nigeria recently for plotting attacks on western targets, Benotman said, citing postings made to jihadist websites. Those arrests were not reported by Nigerian media or announced by security agencies.

Last month, the commander for US military operations in Africa told the AP that Boko Haram may be trying to co-ordinate attacks with al-Shabaab and Aqim

Nigeria's military, police and secretive State Security Service have been unable to stop Boko Haram from waging an increasing bloody sectarian fight against this oil-rich nation's weak central government.

Other problems for Nigeria's intelligence agencies came as it abandoned a US-assisted anti-terrorism programme in late 2007 known as "Focal Point", which saw the Nigerian government set up units in major cities to monitor suspected terrorists, the Nigerian official said.

The units fell apart as agencies stocked them with friends who took advantage of trips, leaving the job of tracking suspects to local police authorities who knew nothing about the cases, the official said.

"Many saw the centres as opportunity for 'their boys' to go on overseas trips and make money," the official said.

Deb MacLean, a spokesperson for the US embassy in Abuja, declined to immediately comment.

Bashir Adigun

The Rest @ News24

Al Qaeda has Decided to Claim the Arab Spring

AQIM , AQAP , Hamas and al Qaeda leadership seem to have fallen into a decision about what to do about the Arab Spring. They are using the Hezbollah Spin.

in 2000, Israel unilaterally left the occupation of Southern Lebanon in accordance with a UN negotiated agreement. Though they neither defeated Israel nor caused them to withdraw, Hezbollah followed Israeli troops out of Lebanon shouting victory slogans. Anti-Israel (or anti-zionist) factions around the world, desperate for some sort of victory, began to repeat Hezbollah's spin that they themselves had driven Israel out of Lebanon. Hezbollah status and prestige gained from the myth continues to this day.

Today, Al Qaeda affiliates around the world are beginning to take credit for the Arab Spring in their recruiting propganda, claiming that they have "planted the seeds" of the rebellion."

While it's true the al Qaeda created an overall strategy that included dealing with "apostate secular states" like Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, (See 7 Steps) they had been unable to gain any traction in secular states with an Islamic majority population. The Arab Spring was a surprise to the West and Islamist activists alike.

Watch now for other anti-zionists to feed into the newest myth, that The Arab Spring was the fruit of an Islamist idea.

-Shimron Issachar

***************************************

Al-Qaida in North Africa seeks Arab Spring jihad

By ELAINE GANLEY

PARIS (AP) - Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb wants to put its footprint on the Arab Spring now that violence is fueling the uprisings, and in a two-part video is trying to lure new followers for revolt by jihad.

The push comes as the group has sought to expand its operations beyond its Algerian base and desert outposts to countries around Africa, from Nigeria to Libya, after the death of Osama bin Laden and after being sidelined when the Arab revolts erupted earlier this year.

During the mostly peaceful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, the al-Qaida offshoot kept up sporadic attacks on Algerian security forces in its bid to overthrow the government and install an Islamist state. But the world was looking elsewhere.

Now, with Arab uprisings meeting increasingly violent resistance from autocratic regimes in countries such as Libya and Syria, AQIM wants to be seen as an alternative force.

Seeking a peaceful change of leaders is "like giving aspirin to a cancer patient," a member of AQIM's military board, Commander Abu Saeed al-Auresi, says in the lengthy video, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. SITE has made the video available and said it was posted Aug. 3 on jihadist forums.

AQIM has entered a new phase and is no longer on the defensive, says Mathieu Guidere, an expert in strategic monitoring and al-Qaida specialist.

Despite repeated threats, the group has provided no evidence it is capable of striking across the Mediterranean into Europe. But with bin Laden's death, Guidere said, AQIM promised to lead a military and media offensive in the north, south, east and west of the African continent.

And, he argues, that is happening, with stepped up attacks on soldiers in Algeria - the north - in Mauritania - the west - as well as in Libya - the east - where the movement allegedly sent a "minimal" number of fighters.

To the south, AQIM offered training, men and weapons in January 2010 to a feared Islamist sect in Nigeria called Boko Haram, the local Hausa language for "Western education is sacrilege," according to an AQIM statement provided by SITE. It was signed by AQIM's leader, Abelmalek Droukdel, using his nom de guerre Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, who evoked "the duty to support Muslims everywhere."

Boko Haram has significantly raised its profile since the offer with numerous deadly attacks.

There is no sign of a formal AQIM partnership with Boko Haram. British authorities said this month they were investigating a video claiming an unspecified al-Qaida group was holding a Briton and Italian man kidnapped in Nigeria in May.

AQIM stepped up deadly attacks in Algeria in spring and registered more attacks in July than any time this year, according to Guidere. He counts attacks throughout AQIM territory, including in the desert Sahel region south of Algeria - which crosses Mauritania, Niger and Mali, where hostage-taking is a main source of revenue. Four French hostages, captured in September 2010 in Niger, are still being held, possibly in Mali.

For Guidere, AQIM has found a new legitimacy that it had lost at the start of the then-peaceful Arab Spring. Its message is that people can demonstrate in vain against dictators or choose jihad.

"For me, this video is a turning point in the (AQIM) propaganda," Guidere said, because it is looking for a new way to reach the people.

"AQIM is an elitist organization that believes it is chosen by God," he said, adding that it always presented its heroes as "exceptional." Now, "they want to mix the images of popular revolution and AQIM to show that they are the same."

Part I of the nearly two-hour propaganda film shows protest rallies throughout the Arab world. It includes contrasting footage of various Arab leaders in clubby poses, from Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika kissing Egypt's now-deposed leader Hosni Mubarak to former French President Jacques Chirac shaking hands with the ousted Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Part II addresses efforts by the United States, France and Algeria to counter AQIM in the lawless Sahel region, but contrasts that with a deadly July 4, 2009 raid by AQIM's southern arm in Mali that killed 29 soldiers.

For senior SITE analyst Adam Raisman, it is less the message than the medium - a video - that is a departure from previous AQIM propaganda. Audio messages supported the Tunisians as January protests forced their strong-armed leader to flee into exile.

In what could be another part of AQIM's bid to appeal to new recruits, the video shows AQIM leader Droukdel taking part in what is claimed to be an April 15 attack on an Algerian army outpost - carried out as the Algerian president gave a speech announcing constitutional and electoral reforms to calm daily demonstrations around the country. The attack near the town of Azazga, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Algiers in the mountainous Kabyle region - an AQIM stronghold - left 13 soldiers dead.

It is rare to see an al-Qaida branch leader fighting alongside his men, Raisman said.

Members of jihadist forums "were exhilarated to see him participating in battle, leading the charge," Raisman said. "He's firing his gun, he's hiding behind a rock, he's talking on a walkie-talkie, issuing orders. He's defiant."

Often graying, aging fighters shown in the Arabic-language videos are filmed on their sorties through the craggy forested hills of Algeria's Kabyle region or in the Mali desert, accompanied in the videos by taped songs. As in other AQIM propaganda videos, the viewer is not spared the bloody bodies of attack victims and booty taken from the corpses, displayed and recorded almost tenderly by the camera.

The video by AQIM's media arm is titled "Assault Them Through the Gate, For When You Are In, Victory Will be Yours." Using a Quranic reference, AQIM pleads for frontal action, not peaceful uprisings, to bring change. A photo of bin Laden, and scenes of him walking in rugged terrain, punctuate the videos.

The North African al-Qaida affiliate was born in late 2006 out of the last remaining Algerian insurgency movement still organized enough to do harm, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. Pledging its allegiance to bin Laden's operation provided new dynamism for an increasingly battered insurgency movement.

Today, AQIM, like other al-Qaida arms, claims it set the spark for the uprisings around the Arab world.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Rest @ AP ABC12

Boko Haram

It is largely believed that the current form of the group has evolved from the so called, 'Nigerian Taliban' founded in 2003, with foreign operatives from neighbouring countries such as Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. The group went underground following a massive security crackdown by the then government of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Boko Haram, which means Western education is profane or sinful is formally known as 'Jama'atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lidda'awati Wal Jihad'. It emerged in 2006 with the aims of establishing sharia all over Nigeria. It opposes secular governments and a Western system of education, which it believes is not founded on moral religious teachings.

The current mayhem in Nigeria owes its origin to the killing of Boko Haram's founding leader, Mohammed Yusuf, and hundreds of his followers by security forces in 2009, which Boko Haram vowed to revenge. The worst of the group's atrocities have occurred this year, reaching their peak in the post April-May elections, that brought President Goodluck Jonathan to the helms of the Nigerian Aso Rock Villa.

Since their New Year's Eve bombings at a busy fish market in Abuja, Boko Haram has perpetrated almost daily deadly attacks, which threaten the stability and fledging democracy in Africa's most populous nation.

Most attacks have taken place in northern Nigeria, particularly at Boko Haram's headquarters in Maiduguri, which for the past several months has been a ghost town, with many businesses including schools shut down.

Although Boko Haram activities have been confined to the northern part of the country, the group has used Abuja to stage its most high profile attacks aimed at attracting international attention. These attacks have demonstrated sophistication, resilience and ability of Boko Haram to strike when and wherever it deems fit.

For example, on 29 May, on the occasion of the inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan, Boko Haram attacked a crowded beer garden in Abuja, and on 16 June, it carried out a suicide attack at the Federal Police headquarters in the city. Nearly 30 people died in both attacks and several others were injured.


Since the New Year's Eve bombings, Boko Haram has carried out no fewer than 70 major attacks (4 of them in Abuja) or an average of one attack every three days. In total, more than 600 people have been killed.

The timing of the 26 August suicide attacks on the UN and the selection of the target were never coincidental nor was it an opportunistic moment. Rather, the attacks show careful planning, a thorough understanding of the target, and a deliberate strategic choice aimed at demonstrating that the group means business. It wants Nigeria, the United States and the rest of the world to take notice and to signal that the group is now under the supreme command of Ayman Zawahiri, the new al Qaeda leader who replaced Osama bin Laden.

Boko Haram's public declaration of its allegiance and loyalty to al Qaeda is part of its 'public awareness strategy'. It also claimed that some of its operatives have been trained with al Shabaab in Somalia. Furthermore, on 18 August 2011 the online version of the Nigerian Standard carried a message purportedly from Imam Abubakar Shekau, the mystic Boko Haram leader, who replaced the charismatic founder, Mohammed Yusuf. In the message, Shekau offered solidarity with al Qaeda and sent a chilling threat to the United States.

Apart from its rhetoric and pronouncements, intelligence gathered on Boko Haram is yet to reveal compelling evidence of its link to al Qaeda, despite the group's increasing use of al Qaeda style sophistication and tactics. The kidnapping of two foreigners in May (a British and an Italian) is perhaps the most illustrious of this growing axis.

To date, the group had never attacked or kidnapped foreigners and it is believed that the two foreigners were handed to Al Qaeda in the land of Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Algeria based group, which has been touting lawlessness in the Sahel region. Understanding this link, and Boko Haram's ultimate goal of morphing into a global terrorist organisation, is important and such foreknowledge might have prevented the attacks on the UN building.



Abuja is host to many international institutions, including an African Union Office and the headquarters of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), both of which have not been attacked. The attack on the UN was therefore a strategic choice for Boko Haram and represents a trend that we have seen in recent times, particularly in the transformation of local terrorist organisations.

This is not the first time that the UN has been targeted by a terrorist group. In 2003, 15 UN staff died in a bomb blast in Iraq following an attack by the militant group, Jama'at al-Tawid wal-Jihad (now called by its new name, Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn) shortly after announcing its allegiance to al Qaeda, by its late leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Similarly, 41 people (17 of them UN staff) were killed in December 2007, when a car bomb slammed into the UN building in Algiers, Algeria after the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) declared its loyalty to al Qaeda and adopted its new name-AQIM. More than 20 UN employees have also died in Afghanistan in militant attacks in 2009 and in April this year.

The current trend shows that the UN has become a regular target in the transformation of a local or domestic terrorist group into a global network. This seems to be a key al Qaeda requirement for initiation of local groups-the demand to internationalise their targets and agenda. The internationalisation of a domestic terrorist group or its initiation into al Qaeda may follow different models such as the one taken by al Shabaab in Somalia, which failing to attack a UN building, decided to attack a popular Ethiopian restaurant frequented by foreigners in Kampala, on 11 July 2010, during the finals of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

The attacks on the UN headquarters completes Boko Haram's metamorphosis into an international terrorist group and represents a turning point for the future of terrorism in Nigeria. In reality, this means that moving forward the goal of islamisation or for spreading sharia shall not be confined to Nigeria and that other countries in the region are potential targets. Although this has always been imbedded in the name 'Boko Haram,' the recent fatwa issued by Shekau, however promised to attack and kill any Muslim that goes against the establishment of sharia.

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Given its new international profile, Boko Haram will become even more complex, sophisticated and difficult for law enforcement to intercept and neutralise. Although it will lose substantial support in Nigeria as many Nigerians are now growing weary of the groups heinous acts, however, it now has a wider milieu for recruitment, training and access to weapons, as well as other resources for sustaining the group. It could be expected that future attacks would include foreign targets.

A far more dangerous consequence of Boko Haram's activities would be if the group expands its activities further south and destroys the imaginary line that divides Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. It should also be expected that suicide terrorism will increasingly become a dominant feature of Boko Haram tactics. Both scenarios do not bode well for a region already plagued by a multiplicity of security and development challenges.

Martin A. Ewi

The Rest @ AllAfrica

New Mass Graves found in South Kordofan Sudan

South Kordofan lies just across the border from newly independent South Sudan and has been the site of clashes between government troops from Sudan's Arab north and black tribesmen aligned with the south's Sudan People's Liberation Movement. Many inhabitants of South Kordofan fought for the south during the country's two decades-plus civil war against the north and are ethnically linked to the south.

A report released this month by the U.N. human rights office in Geneva said Sudanese security forces allegedly carried out indiscriminate aerial bombardments in South Kordofan that killed civilians in the weeks before South Sudan became independent on July 9. It also alleged that Sudanese forces executed prisoners accused of belonging to the south's Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement before burying them in mass graves.


"The evidence against the Sudanese government continues to compound and has now become impossible to dismiss. It is time for the international community to take serious action and execute its responsibility to protect innocent lives in Sudan," said John Prendergast, co-founder of the activist group the Enough Project.

The Sudanese Red Crescent Society has said that it buried 59 bodies in marked burial sites in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan state, between mid-June and mid-July.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it supplied body bags, rubber boots and cameras to SRCS teams tasked with the management of dead bodies, according to spokeswoman Anna Schaaf. The ICRC is not on the ground in South Kordofan.

The satellite group in July reported the first three mass graves as excavated areas measuring about 26 meters (yards) by 5 meters (yards) visible near a school in the town of Kadugli. The group said that an eyewitness reported seeing 100 bodies or more put into one of the pits on June 8.

Sudan said last week that it will allow six U.N. agencies to take part in a government-organized mission to South Kordofan, where the U.N. human rights office has called for a probe into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Khartoum's U.N. Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said the joint mission will be sent to South Kordofan "to assess the situation of human rights there and the humanitarian needs."

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir on Tuesday announced a two-week cease-fire in South Kordofan.

The Rest @ Huffington Post

Italy Anxious about Libyan Republic's Oil Partner Choices

Possible Coming Al Shabaab Bombing Outside of Somalia

Russian made Semtex, similar to to US made C-4 was held in large Stockpiles in Libya. An undetermined quantity of Semtex now been acquired by AQIM, al al qaeda affiliate during the Libyan Revolution.

Bombings of both the Nigerian UN Building and the Algerian Military Academy took place in the last week, both less than a month after the Semtex was acquired. Both were car bombs, both with very powerful explosions, and both by al Qaeda affiliates.It would not be a surprise to find that Semtex was involved in both bombings.

• Since AQIM, Boko Haram and al Shabaab have both been active in seeking to communicate with each other
• Since there is an established arms smuggling route along the Southern Saraha that reaches Somalia,
• It would not be a surprise for some of this Semtex to be in the hands of al Shabaab

I would watch in the next two weeks to see if al Shabaab conducts a bombing outside of Somalia, as they do not want to interfere with current famine food relief

-Shimron Issachar

AQIM Car Bomb in Chercell, Near Algiers

A suicide bomber detonated a car loaded with explosives outside a military academy west of the Algerian capital on Friday (August 27th, 2011), killing at least 18 people.

At least 20 were wounded at the academy in Cherchell, which lies west of Algiers. The death toll was expected to rise, according to the Sidi Ghilas hospital where the victims were taken.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy, gave conflicting tolls, and it was not clear whether those killed were troops or civilians.Friday was a sacred day in the Muslim calendar that falls toward the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and it is often accompanied by attacks. Although no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, similar assaults have been blamed on al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Islamist extremists have battled Algerian security forces since 1992 when the army cancelled a national election that a now-banned Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win.

Security forces gained the upper hand over the years, but sporadic attacks continue and increased dramatically in July. An estimated 200,000 people civilians, insurgents and security forces have been killed since the violence began.

Th Rest @ The Guardian (UK)