¡¡¡SHOCKER!!!: Senior Boko Haram commander caught: Nigeria police is a Yoruba Man.

Senior Boko Haram commander caught: Nigeria police

REUTERS | 2012-05-13 15:43:00

ABUJA - Nigeria's police said on Saturday they captured a senior commander of the militant Islamist sect Boko Haram in Kano, the largest city in the north and scene of attacks this year that have killed hundreds of people.

Security sources also said that the man police say they caught, Suleiman Mohammed, was known to be a leading Boko Haram figure in Kano. The sect has denied the arrest of senior members claimed by the police in the past.

"We made an arrest Friday based on intelligence reports concerning his hideout and he was arrested successfully with his wife and children in his hideout," the police commissioner in Kano State, Ibrahim Idris, told Reuters.

"He is now being interrogated by the security agents. He has been flown to Abuja. He is Suleiman Mohammed, a Nigerian, Yoruba by tribe. He is the operational leader of the sect in Kano."

The Yoruba tribe is mostly based in the southwest, away from the focus of Boko Haram's violence in the north. The Yoruba are split between Christians and Muslims.

Idris said his officers had recovered explosives, ammunition and guns at Mohammed's hideout.

Gunmen killed at least 15 people and wounded many more at a Christian service in Kano last month and in January coordinated bomb and gun attacks in Nigeria's second city killed 186, the most deadly strikes yet claimed by Boko Haram.

Boko Haram, which wants to carve out a Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has many factions and the leaders of the group in Kano often work independently from senior members in its home base in the northeast, security sources say.

The sect's attacks have replaced militancy in the oil-rich Niger Delta as the main security threat to the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian, and Boko Haram has gained momentum since his election victory a year ago.

Africa's most populous nation of more than 160 million is split roughly equally between a largely Christian south and a mostly Muslim north. More than 100 ethnic groups live side-by-side peacefully in most of Nigeria.

Nigeria: Boko Haram - NOSCEF Raps Northern Elders, Seeks True Federalism

BY DAVE OLUDARE OSO, 7 MAY 2012

RECRIMINATIONS came the way of some Northern Muslim elders weekend over the insecurity and violence that has gripped the northern region of the country.

Making the blame was the Northern States Christians Elders' Forum, which accused the northern elders of shielding and supporting muslim terrorists and their sponsors.

In a communiqué issued in Kaduna and signed by its Chairman, Evangelist Mathew Owojaiye and Engr. Iliya Yusuf, Secretary at the end of the meeting of its states and national executives, the forum said that it would not have been possible for the Boko Haram terrorists to have continued to wreak so much destruction without the knowledge, support and financial backing of some of these elders.

It added, "the meeting noted the deterioration of security especially in the north eastern sector of Nigeria and now encroaching into the middle belt.

"Alarming still is the incessant and deliberate attacks, bombings and shootings of innocent Christians even at their places of worship, that is, churches in Kano, Plateau, Borno, Bauchi, Abuja and Gombe.

"The reason Christians do not retaliate is not because we are cowards but because that will be a sin. It is unfair to go and attack, kill or maim people that are innocent, that may not even know the attackers or may even hate what the attackers are doing. What offence did the worshippers in the churches commit against the sect?

"We had given the Federal Government of Nigeria time to retrain their security forces on how to tackle terrorism. Our patience is running out. We are hereby blaming the Federal Government for any woes visited on us."

The NOSCEF also called for the restructuring of Nigeria into six regions as a way of maintaining the unity of the country.

In advocating true federalism, the forum said "We are hereby calling for National Conference. We need to restructure Nigeria. We want the six geopolitical zones to become regions with a little alteration here and there according to the wishes of the people.

"Each zone will manage its resources and pay tax to the Federal Government as it was in 1960 and 63 constitutions. The Federal Government will take off its hands from education, agriculture, water resources, industries, mineral resources, research and technology, health, power generation, women affairs, youths and sports, works and housing.

"The Federal Government will be solely in charge of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Customs and Aviation."

The forum, while commending government on the building of Almajiri Primary Schools in the North, canvassed for similar gesture for Christian Mission Schools so that it (government) will not be seen as favouring Muslims over Christians.

It said "We Christians in the northern states welcome the idea of the Federal Government helping almajiri schools in the present set up. We view almajiri schools as Muslim mission schools. We Christians also have our mission schools. There is only one main difference. The Muslim almajiri schools teach only Islamic studies while the Christian mission schools teach Christian religious studies and include secular subjects like physics, chemistry, biology which schools in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Iraq also teach.

Source

Nigeria: Some Boko Haram Schmucks Get The Dose Of Their Medications

KANO, Nigeria — Five suspected Islamist militants were killed when bombs they were assembling exploded during a shootout with government troops in northern Nigeria, a military commander said Monday.

"I can confirm that five suspected members of Boko Haram were on Saturday night blown to pieces by IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices)," they were assembling, Colonel Victor Ebhaleme told AFP.

Ebhaleme said the bombs were being assembled for attacks planned for the flashpoint city of Maiduguri, the epicentre of an increasingly bloody insurgency that has left more than 1,000 people dead since mid-2009.

He said the joint military task force (JTF) deployed to the region to stem the violence had surrounded the hideout and "engaged the suspects in a shootout".

Ebhaleme said the insurgents had thrown a bomb at the soldiers when the other bombs inside the house went off "killing the five suspects and destroying the house".

Nigeria: FG Opens Secret Prison For Sect

Abuja - Nigeria is opening a secret detention centre to hold and interrogate suspected high-level members of a radical Islamist sect responsible for hundreds of killings this year alone, a security official has told The Associated Press.

While the facility could create a more cohesive effort among disparate and sometimes feuding security agencies in Nigeria to combat the sect known as Boko Haram, it raises concerns about its possible use for torture and illegal detentions. 

Nigeria's security forces have notorious human rights records, with a documented history of abusing and even killing prisoners.

The prison is in Lagos, far from the violence plaguing the country's predominantly Muslim north, where Boko Haram carries out frequent bombings and ambushes, said the security official, who is directly involved in the project. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the facility with journalists.

"All suspects arrested will be taken to the centre and would be interrogated by a security group," the official said. He declined to say exactly where it is or how many inmates it can hold. He said authorities are arranging to transport suspects to Lagos, Nigeria's largest city located in its southwest.

The detention centre was created at the orders of Nigeria's National Security Adviser General Andrew Owoye Azazi, the official said. Azazi's telephone number is unlisted and the AP was unable to contact him for comment.

Ekpeyong Ita, the director-general of the Nigeria's secret police agency known as the State Security Service, declined to comment on Thursday when the AP asked him about the prison.

Minutes later, secret police spokesperson Marilyn Ogar called an AP journalist and said anyone with information about the purported prison should go to the courts instead of talking to journalists. She refused to confirm or deny the prison's existence.

"Whatever we do, we're running a democratic system that respects the rule of law," the spokesperson said.

Taunting videos

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of north Nigeria, is carrying out increasingly sophisticated bombings and attacks in its sectarian fight against the country's government. The sect carried out a suicide bombing in August at United Nations' headquarters in the country that killed 25 people and wounded more than 100 others, as well as a co-ordinated assault this January in the northern city of Kano that killed at least 185 people.

Diplomats and military officials say the sect has links with two other al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist groups in Africa. Members of the sect also reportedly have been spotted in northern Mali which Tuareg rebels and hardline Islamists seized control of over the past month.

Police officers shot and killed Boko Haram's former leader Mohammed Yusuf in 2009 while he was in their custody, underscoring the lack of respect for human rights among the security forces. Security agencies have been unable to find and arrest the sect's current leader Sheik Abubakar Shekau, who posts taunting videos on the internet promising more violence.

"The problem we have is lack of synergy among the security agencies," the security official told AP. Those agencies include the police, the military, and intelligence agencies like the State Security Service. 

Relations between the agencies are testy at times as each fights for its own budgetary allotments and there are suspicions that some have been influenced by ethnic or religious factors in this nation of more than 160 million people with two dominant religions and more than 250 ethnic groups.

Intelligence agencies allegedly released a suspected Islamic radical in 2007 who later masterminded Boko Haram's suicide car bombing of the UN headquarters. Leaked US diplomatic cable also show US officials complained in 2008 about Nigeria's government quietly releasing other suspects into the custody of Islamic leaders as part of a program it called "Perception Management."

Suspected sect members have been arrested and kept locked up for months without being charged. Authorities also routinely arrest women and children related to suspected Boko Haram members in attempts to draw them out. Amnesty International has said some Boko Haram suspects have been "subject to enforced disappearances."

Incommunicado detention

This record leads to fears among human rights groups that the secret detention centre could see more suspects disappear, deprived of the right to challenge their detentions in the courts.

"Attacks by armed groups do not absolve the Nigerian government of the responsibility to conduct security operations in a manner that complies with national and international law," Amnesty International said in a statement on Thursday. "Widespread unlawful, incommunicado detention must cease immediately."

Ogar, the secret police spokeswoman, appeared later Thursday on the state-run Nigerian Television Authority before the AP published its story. In an interview, she said that a "group of disgruntled people have gone to the foreign media to say that Nigeria has now produced another Guantanamo Bay," referring to the US military detention camp in Cuba.

It is unclear whether any foreign governments have offered Nigeria advice or assistance in opening the detention centre. US Ambassador to Nigeria Terence P McCulley, speaking to journalists April 4, said the US is "working with the Nigerian government to help them develop a counter-terrorism strategy that includes perhaps a centre even to better co-ordinate information and intelligence that they receive".

But Deb MacLean, a US Embassy spokesperson, told the AP that she was unaware of the new detention centre and said that the US had no role in it.

50 Foreigners Held In Anti-Boko Haram Raid

Security agents swung into action at the weekend, following Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau’s Youtube threat.

Fifty foreign nationals were arrested in Abuja.

Those arrested were mostly illegal aliens from Niger, Chad and Mali, it was gathered.

But the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) yesterday said it was only intensifying surveillance not only in Abuja but in the 36 states.

The Nation learnt that following a tip-off, Immigration operatives stormed a quarters at about 8.15pm. They came in a Coaster bus, painted in the service colour. The bus was escorted by a Toyota Hillux van carrying armed men, mostly.

Most of the armed operatives were in mufti.

A source, who witnessed the surveillance, said: “Having known that it s a hideout of foreign nationals, the Immigration officers came for the combing of the area.

“Gunshots fired into the air sent everyone scampering to safety, including children, nursing mothers and expectant women.

“The gunshots also threw commercial motorcyclists operating in the area into confusion.

“After a 45-minute operation, the Immigration Service succeeded in arresting a bus-load of foreign nationals illegally in transit. They were no fewer than 50.”

Responding to a question, the source said: “They worked on the suspicion that some Chadians, Nigerien, Malian Tuaregs have made Galadinmawa their first port of call in Abuja.

“I think the recent intelligence report, which linked some foreign nationals with Boko Haram informed the raid.

“Confused residents also believed that the raid may not be unconnected with the manhunt for Boko Haram members in the FCT.

“Even before the raid, most residents of Galadinmawa have not been comfortable with the huge presence of foreign nationals in the area.

Immigration Service spokesman Joachim Olumba, said: “I don’t have any information about that yet. What I can tell you is that our operatives are intensifying surveillance in all the states.

“We are intensifying surveillance because of the security situation in the country. These are not the best of times for us as a nation, but we are determined to ensure that peace and security return to the country.

“This surveillance is not only in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), it is being carried out in the 36 states.”

It could not be immediately ascertained what has become of those arrested.

An Immigration Service source said: “Normally, when Illegal aliens are arrested, they will undergo security screening before being deported.”

Security around hotels, churches and other strategic areas remained fight in Abuja yesterday.

A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent, who went round the city, observed that policemen, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and FRSC officers were in strategic locations to ensure peace.

At Sheraton and Transcorp Hilton hotels, it was observed that some military men were deployed to complement the internal security arrangements of the hotel managements.

At Holy Trinity Catholic Church, THISDAY Dome, St Mathew Anglican Church in the Maitama axis, road blocks were mounted and vehicular movement restricted to secure the areas.

At the dome, one of the policemen, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the idea was to ensure effective monitoring of movement of vehicles.

“As you can see, our major focus is to make sure that those who come here to worship go home safely. We are blocking the road just for safety.

“You can see that people pack their vehicles outside; if we don’t block this road, there will be serious traffic here.’’

At Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Maitama, FRSC man Mr Jonah John told NAN that the focus was more on free movement of people at the end of the service.

“What we are doing is part of the security work, but we focus more on ensuring that no accident occurs here.

“You can see that nobody parks inside the church compound; everybody is encouraged to park outside.’’

Security was also strengthened at the Assemblies of God Church in Garki 2 as well as Dunamis Church, Mountain of Fire and Living Faith Church, all in Area 1, Abuja.

MAY THE LIVING GOD I SERVE DESTROY YOU AND YOUR AGENTS ... AMEN!!!

Boko Haram in a just released video threatens to destroy Christianity and Christians in Nigeria and also vowed that they would put an end to President Goodluck Jonathan rather than be out an end to by the President as he promised recently in South Korea.

9 Boko Haram Members Killed, 2 Arrested.

It was war at Tudun Wada Local Government Area, Kano, northwest Nigeria, Wednesday when the police engaged members of the Islamic fundamentalist sect, Boko Haram in a gun battle and killed nine of them.

The lifeless bodies of the suspected Boko Haram sect members.

The terrorists attacked a Divisional Police Officer’s house, police station and Unity Bank.
P.M.NEWS learnt that the dreaded Islamic militants came on three vehicles at about 2 a.m., broke into the armoury of Tudun Wada Police station bombed the station and carted away arms and ammunition.
Security forces claimed no life was lost on their side, as nine Boko Haram men were gunned down while two were arrested alive during a gun battle that lasted for five hours.
Tudun Wada is about 100 kilometers away from Kano metropolis.
The Brigade Commander of 3 Brigade (Bukavu Barracks), Brigadier-General Illyasu Abbah briefed newsmen this evening.
He said the operation was a major breakthrough for Kano Joint Security Task Force.
According to him, the Islamic militants in search of guns and money attacked a Unity Bank adjacent to the bombed police station, “but they did not succeed in breaking into the vault containing about N2 million.
“Within the hours of 2 and 7 a.m. on Wednesday, hoodlums went to Tudun Wada which is about 100 kilometers from Kano. They used explosives to blow up the police station in the area.
“They destroyed the DPO’s house, went to the police station and did the same. They also used explosives to blow up Unity Bank adjacent the police station,” the Army Chief told journalists, adding that the Islamic militants carted away rifles from the bombed police station.
“On getting the information, at about 1:30 a.m. security operatives mobilised, blocked Falgore, Jos and Kano axis because definitely, they came from Kano to operate and move back.”
The Army boss said during the gun-duel, the JTF over-powered members of the sect who came in three cars, and recovered the arms and ammunition stolen from the destroyed police station.
He stated that, “only God knows what these weapons would be used for if they had succeeded in carting them away. This hoodlums lack arms and they have been in desperate mood to get these items. That is why their best place of attack are police stations.”
Items recovered from the Boko Haram militants include, 600 rounds of 5.6 mm bullets, 176 cartridges of Pump Action gun, 147 rounds of 9mm bullets, two AK 47 rifles, three pistols, two assorted rifles, two smoke guns, 21 magazines, two dane guns, one Pump Action gun, six containers of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), 70 Canisters of Tear Gas, one Lap Top, police uniforms and helmets.
By Maduabuchi Nmeribeh/Kano