The Federal Government and the Boko Haram sect have opened peace talks with an indirect contact made between the two sides over the past week through two senior clerics, sources privy to the discussions told Daily Trust last night.

A deal is being worked out for a three-month ceasefire during which there would be no attack by the sect and there would also be no “harassment” from the government, one of the sources said.

“Boko Haram wants the release of arrested members as a condition for ceasefire. Then discussions will follow,” a source told one of our reporters.

Earlier yesterday, Reuters news agency also reported that “mediated” talks have started.

One of the sources who spoke to Daily Trust last night said the two clerics involved in the negotiations have close contacts in the Boko Haram sect, and they have been shuttling between the sect’s self-proclaimed leader Abubakar Shekau and government officials.

The two clerics were in the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria together with the late Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose death in police custody in July 2009 triggered a widespread violent uprising by the sect.

But one source said the talks were being threatened by leakages in the media.

“The problem is that Boko Haram has intended for this to be confidential. But the issue has already leaked to the media. So now, Boko Haram is threatening to back out though the mediators are trying to persuade the sect to stay on,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from the Presidency over the story yesterday. Boko Haram, which makes sporadic tele-conferences through Maiduguri-based journalists, also did not react to the report.

The senior cleric mentioned as the leading mediator did not answer calls made to seek his comments on Wednesday and yesterday.

When our reporter called the other cleric in the talks last night, he pleaded not be named because he said they had agreed ab initio to make these talks secret.

A third source spoken to yesterday said one of the mediators had confided in him that the discussions were going on and there were indications of success. He said the major target for now was to agree to a three-month ceasefire, during which Boko Haram will not launch any attack while security forces will not attempt to arrest any sect member.

The source said if the ceasefire is achieved, then discussions on ending the whole campaign of violence will start.

In its own report, Reuters quoted a source saying that “BH (Boko Haram) has mentioned a conditional ceasefire but it wants all its members released from prison. The government sees this as unacceptable but is willing to release foot soldiers.”

It said a traditional leader and a civil rights activist, whose names were not given, were also involved in the talks.

“It is the first time a ceasefire has been mentioned, so it is a massive positive, but given the lack of trust a resolution is still a way off,” the Reuters source added.

National Security Adviser, General Owoye Andrew Azazi, was quoted to have said in January that the government was considering making contact with moderate members of Boko Haram via “back channels.”

President Jonathan has also said in January that the government was open to dialogue but said sect members were hidden and therefore direct talks were unlikely.

The military’s efforts to stem the sect’s insurgency have had mixed results in the past, with human rights groups saying heavy-handed tactics have worsened resentment of authorities.

But more recently there have been arrests of senior figures including Abul Qaqa and Kabiru Sokoto, while some have died in clashes with security forces.

The group has not managed to launch a widescale, coordinated attack since one in Kano that killed 186 people in January, reverting to crude bomb attacks and drive by shootings. 

Source: AllAfrica

The kidnap and killing of a British and Italian hostage in northernNigeriamarks a worrying new development in the violence wreaked by the country’s militant Islamists.

Responsibility for the abduction was initially claimed by a previously unheard-of group calledal-Qaidain the Land Beyond the Sahel, but Nigerian security sources believe that the kidnappers came from a faction ofBoko Haram, an Islamist sect responsible for almost 1,000 deaths since it launched an uprising in 2009.

According to Nigerian security sources, the hostages were being kept in the remote northern city of Sokoto at the time of the attempted rescue. The centuries-old Muslim trading hub has until now escaped the brunt of violence by Boko Haram, which means “western education is sinful” in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria. But several hundred miles of porous and poorly policed borders with Niger makes Sokoto a haven for kidnappers from Boko Haram or al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as Aqim.

Both groups see themselves asoffshoots of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida and loosely model themselves on the Taliban. But neither is a single, coordinated organisation, and each is divided into various factions more or less willing to use violence to achieve their aims, analysts say.

Vast geographies and weak central governments mean that Nigeria and its northern neighbours have struggled to prevent ordinary citizens or criminal-minded terrorists from slipping across borders.

Roaming the vast deserts that span Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Western Sahara, Aqim operates largely unchecked by these under-resourced governments. But the Algerian-founded movement has yet to implant itself in Nigeria where militancy, to date, has been a localised phenomenon.

Officials say factions within each of the groups have been in contact with each other. According to Nigerian intelligence officials, members of the more radical Boko Haram factions have received training from Aqim in Algeria and possibly Afghanistan. Aqim is thought to have given Boko Haram advice on urban terrorist tactics and suicide bombings.

Aqim has perfected what analysts call a “kidnap economy”, thriving off the abduction and ransom of westerners and Africans. It often snatches hostages in one country and moves them across one or more borders, ending up in Aqim bases in Mali. Reports suggest Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara were moved around but remained within Nigerian borders, which makes it unlikely that Aqim was behind the atrocity.

To date, Boko Haram has shunned kidnapping as a cash cow or ideology. The group generally favours untargeted mass bomb attacks. But it has shown increasing sophistication in its campaign, graduating from crude bombs to more sophisticated improvised explosive devices. Is targets have also become more ambitious: an attack on the UN office in Abuja last yearsignalled that foreigners were considered legitimate targets.

The diversity of methods suggests, observers say, that the group is increasingly splintered. That raises the frightening possibility that the kidnappers are most likely an offshoot of Boko Haram mimicking Aqim’s tactics. This could spell a new chapter of terror in the north of the country, mirroring the decade of kidnappings that plagued Nigeria’s southern oil creeks until a 2009 amnesty. Most hostages taken by oil militants were held for ransom and released safely – but the jihadi ideology that fuels Islamist militancy would make such outcomes far less likely in the north.

Source: The Guardian 

Army General Carter Ham told the United States house armed services committee that leading figures in al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and North Africa’s al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) were discussing ways to synchronise their actions.

If successful in their efforts to link up, the Commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said that the terrorist networks would pose a “real challenge” to the United States.

The four-star General, who commanded the US military intervention in Libya, had earlier expressed concern about the “stated intent” of the groups to work together, voiced most strongly by Boko Haram and AQIM.

Boko Haram – a militant Islamist group whose campaign of terror in northern Nigeria has left hundreds dead – has reportedly received weapons and training from al-Qaeda’s North African wing.

And some analysts have pointed to the sophistication of its bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital Abuja last year, in which 23 died, as evidence of strengthened ties to other terrorist groups.

“Boko Haram has definitely taken inspiration from groups like al-Shabaab and AQIM, but current evidence for actual linkages isn’t compelling,” Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank, told The Daily Telegraph.

“While we see increasing sophistication in Boko Haram’s techniques, including the use of suicide bombings, much of Boko Haram’s agenda is still to do with Nigerian issues and not a broader radical Islamist agenda.”

Al-Shabaab demonstrated its chilling capacity to carry out attacks further afield in July 2010, when twin suicide bombings killed 74 football fans watching the World Cup Final in Uganda’s capital Kampala.

Within Somalia, the group is battling on many fronts, including against Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, and an African Union offensive in Mogadishu that has taken back much of the capital.

But an announcement by al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri formally welcoming al-Shabaab to its ranks has provoked concerns that the group is committed to exporting its terror tactics to the region and beyond.

Africa is an increasingly important arena for US counterterrorism efforts, as concern mounts that al-Qaeda affiliates are extending into unstable parts of Africa. An expeditionary base in the Horn of Africa and extensive military training and intelligence-gathering operations across the continent are just some of America’s counterterrorism strategies in the region.

“One of the key lenses that the United States looks at Africa through is counterterrorism,” added Vines. “Paradoxically, we’ve seen a deepening of the security relationship between the United States and Africa under President Barack Obama, whereas President George W. Bush is remembered more for his humanitarian activities on the continent.”

The United Nations resolution passed on Wednesday allowing increase of AU troops in Somalia will see the number of Ugandan forces in Mogadishu rise from 5,160 to 6,860.

The resolution also admits Kenya as the fourth African troop-contributing country with 4,700, while Burundi will add 1,000 troops.

Djibouti, the third country, which deployed one battalion last year, will add 850 combatants.

The spokesperson of the AU forces in Somalia, Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda, said the boost will allow them start the second phase of the mission-expanding the military offensive outside Mogadishu.

“We will now launch Phase Two - which is expansion into South West of Mogadishu. We are targeting Gedo and lower Juba, central regions of Bay and Bakool and also some parts of Hiiraan. The idea is to chase al- Shabaab and capture the key towns as quickly as possible,” he said.

Read on here

Source: AllAfrica

Mounting concern about the twin threats posed by pirates and Islamic insurgents operating in Somalia has led Britain and other EU nations to consider the feasibility of air strikes against their logistical hubs and training camps, the Guardian has been told.

The issue has been rising up the agenda of David Cameron’s National Security Council in recent months, reflecting anxiety in the west about piracy, but also the ambitions of some leaders within al-Shabaab, the clan-based movement that is fighting against Somalia’s western-backed transitional government.

Though the “war games” remain on the drawing board for now, the disclosure that they have been under serious scrutiny shows the depth of unease about the situation within the British government, which is hosting an international conference on Somalia in London starting on Thursday.

According to sources, the international coalition that has been spearheading the fight against the pirates drew up contingency plans in the summer of 2010, and again last year, for what was termed “over the beach” air strikes against Somali camps.

The UK has also considered plans for attacking targets in places where al-Shabaab and the pirates appear to co-exist, particularly in southern Somalia.

But though the military advice is that any attacks would be relatively straightforward, and may only involve small numbers of heavily-armed helicopters flown from warships, planners have also flagged the likelihood that civilians could be caught up in any fighting.

That has been one of the prime considerations militating against pre-emptive military action, though sources said that situation could change.

“We don’t have the assets in place,” said one senior official in Whitehall. “That does not mean we could not get them in the air quickly. You have got to think long and hard. You have got to be absolutely sure [about the targets].”

The official said that a short, sharp strike might “interdict” potential terrorists and pirates, but would not be a solution to either problem in the long term.

Read on here

Source: The Guardian

At least two police officers have been wounded in the Somali capital Mogadishu after a car bomb exploded next to a police department building in an attack claimed by the insurgent al-Shabab group.

Police said the bomb went off on Friday after they had arrested the driver of a car suspected of carrying explosives.

Officers said they were waiting outside the criminal investigations department for bomb disposal experts when the explosives in the car detonated.

The attack was the latest in a wave of assaults in war-torn Mogadishu.
    
“We had seized this car earlier in the morning and detained the driver, who is alive and under arrest,” Mohamed Ali, a police officer, said. “It went off prematurely as we were waiting for bomb experts to come and disarm the car.”

The blast destroyed the gate to the police department and shattered the windows of buildings nearby. The explosion set ablaze cars parked in the compound, residents said.

The criminal investigations department is located near other government offices in central Mogadishu.

Shabab claims responsibility

Al-Shabab, which is allged to have ties to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the blast in a post on Twitter. They said the car bomb was triggered remotely by their mujahideen, or holy warriors.

“The mujahideens managed to get a car bomb into the complex before exploding it remotely 30 minutes later,” the group said in its online message.
    
Al-Shabab aim to overthrow Somalia’s weak leaders and institute Islamic rule. They have been fighting the Transitional Federal Government since 2007. Their online posts went on to say that al-Shabab would be embarking a “new campaign” to target bases associated with the TFG and any foreign governments.
    
The group has intensified the frequency of attacks in Mogadishu since withdrawing from most of its bases in the capital in August last year.

“This is happening because al-Shabab are able to hide themselves with people returning back to Mogadishu,” Colonel Omar Mohamed, of the police’s criminal investigations department, told Al Jazeera shortly after the attack.

Al-Shabab fighters control large parts of central and southern Somalia, but are facing increasing pressure from regional armies, including Kenyan troops in the south and Ethiopia’s army in the south and west.

Thousands of Somalis are fleeing into the capital after African Union-backed government troops have launched renewed attacks on Shabab positions on the outskirts of the capital.

More than 7,200 people have fled into the city from the rebel-held Afgoye corridor, a 40 kilometre (25-mile) stretch of makeshift camps along a road, home to some 410,000 people, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

“UNHCR fears for the safety of the displaced and we urge all armed groups and forces to make the protection of civilians a priority,” the agency said.

Source: Al Jazeera

President Goodluck Jonathan comparing Boko Haram’s wave of violence to atrocities committed during the countries 1967-1970 civil war, otherwise known as the Biafran War 

Nairobi - The Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab has accused Britain of trying to colonise Somalia, ahead of a major international conference in London on the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

Leaders from Somalia and 40 other nations are expected to gather on February 23 for the British government-hosted conference, in the latest diplomatic attempt to find some external solution to over 20 years of civil war.

But al-Shabaab spokesperson Sheikh Ali Mahmoud Rage said the conference was another attempt to “colonise” Somalia.

“Britain must understand that the Muslims have long rejected British Imperialism and the futility of their renewed attempt is all too obvious,” the militant group added on its Twitter feed late on Monday.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague visited Somalia last week ahead of the conference.

In colonial times, Britain controlled what has now become the semi-autonomous northern region of Somaliland, while Italy controlled the rest of the country. Somalia gained independence from colonial rule in 1960.

Al-Shabaab, which last week said it had merged with al-Qaeda, has been fighting to oust the internationally backed government since early 2007.

In recent months, the group has been losing control of part of the territory as a result of pressure from pro-government forces, including African Union and Kenyan troops, leading to international hopes that a solution to the conflict may be within reach.

The African Union peacekeeping mission, known as Amisom, said on Tuesday that it had captured two insurgents sites outside of the capital.

“Operations are ongoing to expand the zone of security in Mogadishu,” said Brigadier General Audace Nduwumunsi, the acting AMISOM commander.

The peacekeepers tentatively began moving out of the capital in January, five months after the insurgents withdrew most of their forces from Mogadishu.

Source: News 24

Abu Qaqa (of Boko Haram), in response to President Goodluck Jonathan’s call for negotiations between the Nigerian government and the terrorist organization. 

The Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, has challenged Boko Haram to identify itself and state clearly its demands as a basis for talks.

The radical Islamist group killed more than 500 people last year and another 250 in the first weeks of 2012 in gun and bomb attacks in the West African country, according to Human Rights Watch.

“If they clearly identify themselves now and say this is the reason why we are resisting, this is the reason why we are confronting government or this is the reason why we destroy some innocent people and their properties … then there will be a basis for dialogue,” Jonathan said in an interview to Reuters at the presidential villa in the capital, Abuja,on Thursday.

“We will dialogue, let us know your problems and we will solve your problem, but if they don’t identify themselves, who will you dialogue with?”

Jonathan said there was no doubt that Boko Haram had links with jihadi groups outside Nigeria.

Read on here 

Source: Al Jazeera 

Nigerian authorities have suspended a top police officer for alleged negligence in the escape of a suspected member of the Islamist Boko Haram group over a deadly Christmas Day bomb attack.

At least 44 people, mostly worshippers, were killed in the December 25 attack on Saint Theresa’s Roman Catholic Church in Madalla, outside Abuja, the capital.

Kabiru Sokoto, who was arrested on Saturday, had been handed over to a police commissioner for further investigation.

The governors of the 36 Nigerian states have lodges in the capital, Abuja, where Sokoto was arrested.

Sokoto was being transferred to a satellite village called Abaji, near Abuja, for further investigation on Sunday, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

“In the course of undertaking this important procedure, the policemen on escorts with the suspect were attacked by the suspected sect gang members and in the process the suspect was freed,” it said.

“The police view this development as a serious negligence on the part of the commissioner of police and have since queried and suspended him from duty.”

The senior police officer, the identity of whom was not disclosed, and members of his team would be prosecuted if a criminal case was established against them, it also said.

Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja, said that a massive police manhunt is under way for Sokoto.

“If nothing else they have to prove that they are capable of re-arresting this individual,” he said.

“They say, if anything, they won’t want it to look like the police are part and parcel (to his escape).”

Boko Haram blamed

Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the Christmas day attack, has been blamed for scores of attacks in Nigeria, including an August suicide bombing of the UN headquarters in Abuja that killed at least 25.

Also on Tuesday, six high-ranking members of group were arrested in a raid in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, according to a Nigerian Joint Task Force (JTF) commander.

“We have succeeded in arresting six high-profile members of Boko Haram in a raid on their hideout following useful information provided us by some residents,” JTF commander Victor Ebhaleme told the AFP news agency.

He said the six were being interrogated and gave no further details.

Acting on a tip-off, soldiers raided a hideout used by the group on Tuesday and defused five bombs across Maiduguri.

In the same city, troops shot dead four suspected members of Boko Haram and injured five others on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning near Maiduguri, members of the group attacked an army outpost, killing two, according to Nigeria’s military.

A witness said that a soldier and a hospital worker died in the attack.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantely Christian south.

Christian leaders have warned that they will have to defend themselves if authorities do not address the spiralling violence.

Source: Al Jazeera

Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for Nato’s international security assistance force in Afghanistan, gives his response a video which appears to show American marines urinating on dead bodies and laughing. He said such an act was ‘despicable’ and ‘grossly against all the moral values the coalition forces stand for’

Source: The Guardian

There is no excuse for actions such as this, but all I can think about is how numb and completely out of touch with humanity one can become when faced with death every day.

Related: 

Karzai leads wave of condemnation over video of urination on corpses

ABUL-Qaqa, the spokesman of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnati Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, also known as Boko Haram yesterday said the declaration of State of Emergency by the federal government on some selected local government areas of northern Nigeria was meant to attack Muslims and not to restore normalcy.

Qaqa, who spoke to Daily Trust on phone, also reacted to alleged ultimatum given to Muslims living in southern part of the country to vacate the region.

“We find it pertinent to state that soldiers will only kill innocent Muslims in the local government areas where State of Emergency was declared. We would confront them squarely to protect our brothers”, he said.

“We also wish to call on our fellow Muslims to come back to the north because we have evidence that they would be attacked. We are also giving three day ultimatum to the southerners living in northern part of Nigeria to move away”, Qaqa said.

He faulted the decision of President Goodluck Jonathan on his visit to the St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State.

“The President had never visited any of the theatres were Muslims were massacred. He was never in Jos to commiserate with the families of dozens of Muslims that were massacred. He was not in Kaduna or Kafanchan,” Qaqa said.

“The disposition and body language of the President clearly showed that he is the leader of the Christians only”, he said.

Source: allAfrica.com

Okay. Now actual serious things. After the Christmas Eve bombings in Nigeria, president Goodluck Jonathan has ordered a state of emergency in the areas of Nigeria mostly affected by Boko Haram’s attacks. By virtue of the country’s demographics this state of emergency happens to be mostly in the northern, mostly Muslim regions. Additionally, Nigeria’s borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon have been closed, a measure Goodluck Jonathan believes will address his state’s security challenges.

So. What does this all mean and is Nigeria making the right moves? The whole reason this story intrigues me so much is that I personally have never followed or seen a West African country deal with terrorism before and I am interested to see how Nigeria addresses this threat. I am by no means an expert so watching videos like the one above really help form some opinions on the matter. 

Source: Al-Jazeera

The Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a wave of Christmas day bombings across Nigeria, including an attack on a Catholic church that killed at least 25 people.