- Home
- Washington File
- Britain, Israel, U.S Offer Anti-Terror Assistance to Nigeria – CFR Report
Britain, Israel, U.S Offer Anti-Terror Assistance to Nigeria – CFR Report
- By Williams Ekanem
- Published September 12th, 2011
- Washington File
- Unrated
A recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington D.C says that Britain, Israel and the United States have offered anti-terror assistance to Nigeria based on the increased activities of Boko Haram.
The report authored by Toni Jonson of the Council on Foreign Relations, stated that, “some experts argue that the ongoing struggle between Christians and Muslims over political power is a significant factor in the country’s ongoing unrest. This sectarian violence, particularly in the central part of the country where the north and south collide, has killed more than 14,000 people since 1999, according to Human Rights Watch.”
“Others note that Boko Haram has killed more Muslims than Christians. “In a country with a history of polarization between the majority-Muslim north and the majority-Christian south, Boko Haram’s message is a polarizing one at the national level and within the Muslim community,” write Alex Thurston in Foreign Policy. Experts also note that though the northern unrest has been portrayed in a context of extreme religiosity, religious extremism is evident throughout Nigeria,” the report added.
Paul Lubeck, a University of California professor studying Muslim societies in Africa, says Mohammed Yusuf, a radical Islamist cleric, who created Boko Haram in 2002 in Maiduguri was a trained salafist (CSMonitor) (a school of thought often associated with jihad), and was strongly influenced by Ibn Taymiyyah, a fourteenth century legal scholar who preached Islamic fundamentalism and is considered a “major theorist” for radical groups in the Middle East
Stating why the sect has resorted to violence, the report in July 2009, Boko Haram members refused to follow a motor-bike helmet law, leading to heavy-handed police tactics that set off an armed uprising in the northern state of Bauchi and spread into the states of Borno, Yobe, and Kano.
The incident, it stated, was suppressed by the army and left more than eight hundred dead and led to the televised execution of Yusuf, as well as the deaths of his father in-law and other sect members.
In the aftermath of the 2009 unrest, “an Islamist insurrection under a splintered leadership” emerged, says Lubeck. Boko Haram began to carry out a number of suicide bombings and assassinations from Maiduguri to Abuja, and staged an ambitious prison-break in Bauchi, freeing more than seven hundred inmates in 2010.
Experts say the prison-break, use of propaganda, and the bombing of police headquarters in June 2011 indicated an increasing level of sophistication and organization, which could point to outside help. In August 2011, U.S. officials claimed the group has ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which operates in northwest Africa, and Somalia’s al-Shabaab, another militant Islamist group.
Security officials in Nigeria and internationally are concerned that the group has splintered into one that is focused on local grievances and another that is seeking contacts with outside terror groups. “What is most worrying at present is, at least in my view, a clearly stated intent by Boko Haram and by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to coordinate and synchronize their efforts,” said General Carter Ham, head of U.S. military operations in Africa, noting that such a relationship would be “the most dangerous thing to happen” to Africans and to U.S. interests in the region. A 2011 State Department report observes the Nigerian National Police Force has limited capacity to conduct anti-terror operations.
The report authored by Toni Jonson of the Council on Foreign Relations, stated that, “some experts argue that the ongoing struggle between Christians and Muslims over political power is a significant factor in the country’s ongoing unrest. This sectarian violence, particularly in the central part of the country where the north and south collide, has killed more than 14,000 people since 1999, according to Human Rights Watch.”
“Others note that Boko Haram has killed more Muslims than Christians. “In a country with a history of polarization between the majority-Muslim north and the majority-Christian south, Boko Haram’s message is a polarizing one at the national level and within the Muslim community,” write Alex Thurston in Foreign Policy. Experts also note that though the northern unrest has been portrayed in a context of extreme religiosity, religious extremism is evident throughout Nigeria,” the report added.
Paul Lubeck, a University of California professor studying Muslim societies in Africa, says Mohammed Yusuf, a radical Islamist cleric, who created Boko Haram in 2002 in Maiduguri was a trained salafist (CSMonitor) (a school of thought often associated with jihad), and was strongly influenced by Ibn Taymiyyah, a fourteenth century legal scholar who preached Islamic fundamentalism and is considered a “major theorist” for radical groups in the Middle East
Stating why the sect has resorted to violence, the report in July 2009, Boko Haram members refused to follow a motor-bike helmet law, leading to heavy-handed police tactics that set off an armed uprising in the northern state of Bauchi and spread into the states of Borno, Yobe, and Kano.
The incident, it stated, was suppressed by the army and left more than eight hundred dead and led to the televised execution of Yusuf, as well as the deaths of his father in-law and other sect members.
In the aftermath of the 2009 unrest, “an Islamist insurrection under a splintered leadership” emerged, says Lubeck. Boko Haram began to carry out a number of suicide bombings and assassinations from Maiduguri to Abuja, and staged an ambitious prison-break in Bauchi, freeing more than seven hundred inmates in 2010.
Experts say the prison-break, use of propaganda, and the bombing of police headquarters in June 2011 indicated an increasing level of sophistication and organization, which could point to outside help. In August 2011, U.S. officials claimed the group has ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which operates in northwest Africa, and Somalia’s al-Shabaab, another militant Islamist group.
Security officials in Nigeria and internationally are concerned that the group has splintered into one that is focused on local grievances and another that is seeking contacts with outside terror groups. “What is most worrying at present is, at least in my view, a clearly stated intent by Boko Haram and by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to coordinate and synchronize their efforts,” said General Carter Ham, head of U.S. military operations in Africa, noting that such a relationship would be “the most dangerous thing to happen” to Africans and to U.S. interests in the region. A 2011 State Department report observes the Nigerian National Police Force has limited capacity to conduct anti-terror operations.
