The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Al Qaeda

  • Egypt: Sinai bombing kills six policemen

    Six Egyptian policemen have been killed by a roadside bomb in the Sinai peninsula, the Egyptian interior ministry says.

    Two officers were also hurt in the attack, it said.

    The group was travelling in an armoured convoy in northern Sinai.

    Militants in Sinai have intensified their attacks on the security forces after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last year.

    Tuesday’s bombing took place on the road between Rafah, on the border with Gaza, and North Sinai’s provincial capital, el-Arish, the interior ministry said.

    Responsibility for past attacks has been claimed by an al-Qaeda-linked group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.

    The group says it is avenging the hundreds of Islamists killed and thousands detained in a crackdown on Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

  • Islamic State (is): The world’s next scourge and why Nigeria must be alert

    Islamic State (is): The world’s next scourge and why Nigeria must be alert

    It would be quite a shame if the country would sit on its hind legs and wait until Nigerians head to Syria and Iraq to be trained in all the technicalities of decapitating fellow human beings

    If al-Qaeda and its associates have killed in hundreds of thousands, the way The Islamic State, (IS), is going, it  may  account for millions killed by the time the world finally gets clean with it, if ever.  Without a doubt, the world is permanently in a flux but if anybody had suggested that the world was going to contend with anything worse than al-Qaeda so soon after the US dispatched Bin Laden, we all would have told that person to perish the thought. This is not to suggest that there hadn’t been chilling predictions, post Nostradamus, but they were mostly that: predictions that may, indeed, never come till the end of time. No more. They now mushroom like violence is the last name in Christendom.

    Talking about post Nostradamus predictions, there had been many and they keep pouring in. Indeed, 2014 vows to bring the hardest times for mankind. The predictions are terrifying as the world would, according to them, be shocked by natural disasters, assassinations and incurable diseases, and doesn’t Ebola come to mind. The year is believed to be a turning point in the history of humanity. Plagues, wars and disasters threaten the world according to Baba Vanga, a famed Bulgarian prophetess. A blind mystic and clairvoyant, she foresees an epidemic of skin cancer that will decimate the planet’s population and according to the Ukrainian engineer who deciphered Nostradamus quatrains, 2014 will be engulfed in violence.  Famed seers have even seen the beginning of World War111 and Mr. Putin appears to be working unerringly towards that end now that Russia has deployed troops in the Ukraine.

    However, if all these are in the future, not so the mind boggling violence the IS (Islamic State) continues to visit on mankind. Its militants  recently besieged a village in northern Iraq,  gave the residents a deadline to convert to Islam and when they refused, more than 80 men were killed and the women and children of the village became their slaves; this in addition to several weeks of crucifying  Christians, beheading their children and burying others alive. Although it started out like al-Qaeda on an extremist hard line, adhering to global jihadist principles, al-Qaeda has, since February 2004, closed all links to the Islamic State because of its extreme brutality.  Indeed, only two weeks ago, a British-born member of the group was reported to have beheaded the American journalist, Mike Foley, in a horrendous act of brutality that would hardly be equalled.  Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claims to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and has proclaimed him the Islamic “caliph”.  Caliph, meaning successor, is a title used by Sunni Muslims for those who led Islam from the death of the Prophet to the 20th century.  When Turkey was made a secular state after World War I, the caliphate was abolished. Now al-Baghdadi claims to have reconstituted it in himself.  He is calling on the Muslim world to move to his Islamic State to support his movement.  Militants are already carrying the IS flag in Indonesia and across North Africa.  Jihadist groups around the world are deciding whether to switch their allegiance from al-Qaeda to him. Al-Baghdadi has announced his group’s intention to march on Rome and Spain, seeking to establish his caliphate across Europe. When he was transferred from American to Iraqi custody in 2009, (from which he was later released), he told his American captors, “I’ll see you in New York.”

    For us as Nigerians, the most important part of this story, and its relevance is this: ‘Now al-Baghdadi claims to have reconstituted it in himself he is calling on the Muslim world to move to IS and to support his movement’. The potency of this statement and its probable dire consequences arise from what we have come to know about our intelligence community. Naturally, one would expect that a country of Nigeria’s economic standing and place in Africa would, by now, be on top of everything concerning the Islamic State. Indeed, going by the experience of how some Nigerians so easily hung on themselves everything concerning the Islamic world, be it in Iran, Afghanistan or Tajikistan, it should not be out of place to expect that there should be in place, as you read this, a desk specifically dedicated to Islamic state affairs in not only our Ministry of External Affairs, Defence Intelligence or at the ubiquitous DSS. But that will be the day!

    Given that it is not unknown for Nigerians to actually make their services available to organisations like Al-Qaeda, and with the entire Northeastern part of the country now being ferociously buffeted by Boko Haram, it should stand to reason that our intelligence community, if not the presidency, should now be fully engaged with all the ramifications of Islamic state activities. But as I indicated earlier, it would be the mother of all surprises if Nigeria is giving this ogre the importance and seriousness it deserves.

    It would be quite a shame if the country would sit on its hind legs and wait until Nigerians head to Syria and Iraq to be trained in all the technicalities of decapitating fellow human beings, causing and fuelling urban terrorism and putting the entire Nigerian government to fright, not to talk of completely destabilising the economy before our government starts running to foreign countries for assistance.

    The Islamic State (IS), formerly the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in its self-proclaimed status as a caliphate claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world and aspires to bring much of the Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its political control beginning with Iraq, Syria and countries which include Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus and an area in southern Turkey.  The Economist reported in June 2014, that “it may have up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000–5,000 in Syria, including perhaps 3,000 foreigners manly from Chechnya, France and Britain’.

    With a territory bigger than Britain, and assets worth more than 2Billion dollars, oil resources, gold bullions and massive kidnappings from which to easily increase its current holdings and the well known attraction of the young and employed who are relentlessly being recruited via a massive propaganda on the social media, it is obviously a short distance from recruiting hundreds of young impressionable Nigerians who, like the recruits from Europe, will not think twice before returning to Nigeria with their newly acquired capabilities in inflicting complete mayhem on society.

    If Boko Haram is this keen on completely annexing the Northeast, it will not be unreasonable to believe that , if care is not taken, if the Nigerian government does not take appropriate, creative and proactive  measures like keeping on perpetual watch list, the movements and activities of Nigerians who may stray into this weird and dangerous organisation,  Nigeria  may be heading into the mother of all troubles.

    God forbid.

  • Al-Qaeda releases video of US suicide bomber in Syria

    Al-Qaeda releases video of US suicide bomber in Syria

    Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate has released a video of a young US suicide bomber from Florida who blew himself up at an army post in the northwest of the country.

    Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, alias Abu Hurayra al-Amriki, is believed to be the first American national to carry out such an attack in Syria’s more than three-year-old war.

    “I want to rest in the afterlife, not in this world… My heart is not at peace here. Hopefully it will be in heaven,” Abu Hurayra says in broken Arabic in the 17-minute video posted on YouTube on Friday by Al-Nusra Front.

    The footage, released via Al-Nusra’s official channel Al-Manara Al-Baydaa, also shows Abu Hurayra saying: “I came to Syria without money to buy a rifle or a pouch. God gave me a rifle and a pouch and everything, and… (then) he gave me even more,” says the bearded man in his early 20s.

    The American jihadist carried out a May 25 truck bomb attack on an army base in Jabal al-Arbaeen area of northwest Syria’s Idlib province.

    Six days later, the State Department confirmed that the US citizen, who travelled to Syria in 2013, had carried out a suicide attack.

    According to a Facebook page in his name, he was a fan of the Miami Heat basketball team and his favourite artists included Jay Z.

    The parents of “the Florida boy” own a grocery store, with his father from Jordan and mother a convert to Islam, US newspapers reported.

    Estimates of the number of foreign fighters who have flooded into Syria in the past three years range from between 9,000 to 11,000.

    The video gives few details about Abu Hurayra’s precise background, but shows him alongside three other suicide bombers, seated near an Al-Nusra black flag, each speaking of their mission.

    At the time, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four suicide attacks on army positions in Idlib on May 25 left dozens of casualties.

     

     

     

     

    The video says Abu Hurayra attacked an army command building, while a jihadist from the Maldives was also among the four bombers.

     

     

  • Hollande warns of Islamist threat in West Africa

    Hollande warns of Islamist threat in West Africa

    French President Francois Hollande on Friday promoted a new military operation being rolled out in West Africa to take on a multi-faceted menace from Islamist groups that he warned threatened France’s interests and citizens.

    France led a military intervention in its former colony Mali last year, halting the advance of al Qaeda-linked fighters who had seized control of the northern two-thirds of the country in 2012.

    The military operation succeeded in scattering the Islamist groups in Mali, and Paris is in the process of reorganising its deployment in the region, with its 1,700 soldiers in Mali being folded into a broader counter-terrorism force, Reuters says.

    Under the new plan, some 3,000 French troops will now operate out of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad – countries straddling the vast arid Sahel band – with the aim of stamping out an Islamist threat across the region.

    “There are threats, notably from Libya. Military hardware has accumulated there, and without a doubt, terrorists are seeking refuge there,” Hollande said in Niger during a three-day trip that will also take him to Ivory Coast and Chad.

    “We have, therefore, decided to put in place structures and measures that will allow us to confront this threat of terrorism in the Sahel,” he said.

    Islamist fighters launched suicide attacks last year on Niger’s Somair uranium mine in the town of Arlit, which is operated by Areva, a supplier of uranium to France’s nuclear power programme.

  • We are fighting Al-Qaeda, not Boko Haram, says CDS

    We are fighting Al-Qaeda, not Boko Haram, says CDS

    Chief of Defence Staff  Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh said yesterday that the nation is at war with the international terror organisation, Al-Qaeda, in North and West Africa, and not Boko Haram.

    Speaking in Abuja while receiving a Civil Society Organisation, the Social Welfare Network Initiative (SWNI), during a solidarity visit at the Defence Headquarters, Marshal Badeh said Al-Qeada forces were now fully in charge of terrorist activities in Nigeria.

    He said despite the formidable nature of the global terror network, Nigeria would defeat the insurgents, starting with the rescue of the over 200 Chibok school girls abducted by Boko Haram on April 14.

    He said: “We are fighting more than Boko Haram. We are no longer fighting Boko Haram but Al-Qaeda in North and West Africa.  Al-Qaeda is formidable but we will defeat them. As for our girls, we will bring them back”.

    He warned those attacking the military and urged them to desist.

    The CDS explained that the sustained attacks and criticisms against the military could prove counter-productive, stressing that it could impact negatively on national security .

    He continued: “In those days when we had nation-state, every able bodied man was a soldier. Even when they started separating the military profession from other activities, the society supported them.

    “We have people here, all they do is to criticise the military. If you disparage the military and demoralise them, what next will you do.

    “Are you going to give guns to civilians? When you know that to be a military takes some processes. If you continue to criticise, disparage and demoralise the military, what do you think will happen”.

    The National Coordinator of the SWNI, Mr. Emmanuel Osemeka, assured members of the armed forces of the group’s support, saying: “We are not worried about our capacity to prosecute this war, as we are all witnesses to the exploits of our military  in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and many other African countries in the recent past.

    “As a network of CSOs operating in Nigeria, we are queuing behind our troops and government because this war is our war. We are proud of our Armed Forces and we will continue to support your efforts irrespective of the reports of the media and unscrupulous individuals”

    Osemeka urged Nigerians not to see the war as President Goodluck Jonathan’s or that of the Federal Government alone, saying it’s a Nigerian war which every Nigerian must stand up to fight.

    Osemeka canvassed for a sustained civil-military engagement in the ongoing war against terrorism and other security challenges through effective media outreach.

    This, he said, would go a long way in sensitising the public and the international community to the efforts being made by the security agencies in the war against terrorism.

    “This is the time to fight for a patriotic citizenry and we stand to partner with you in order to actualise this goal”, he submitted.

  • A worthy collaboration

    The world changed dramatically on September 11, 2001 when 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four planes in the United States of America (USA) and used them for suicide attacks. Two of those planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashed into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. Within two hours, both towers collapsed.

    A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was crashed into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense), leading to a partial collapse in its western side. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was targeted at Washington, D.C., but crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers. In total, almost 3,000 people died in the attacks, including the 227 civilians and 19 hijackers aboard the four planes.

    The response of the Americans was swift as they launched an attack on al-Qaeda stronghold of Afghanistan which was then run by the Taliban who are sympathetic to al-Qaeda cause. That war has lasted for fourteen years now. The domino effect of 9/11 has remained heightened tension in some parts of the world as al-Qaeda and its affiliates went global by identifying with disgruntled group and subtly hijacking their causes to pursue their own goal.

    This was why there are fears that Boko Haram, which has been terrorising the North East of Nigeria, may have links with al-Qaeda in The Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). After years of warfare trying to decimate al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the US – like the erstwhile Soviet Union before it – realised that might alone could not win the war. Thus, they resorted to a counter narrative which is aimed at changing the perception of the citizens of Afghanistan.

    Back home, our security forces have battled Boko Haram for years with no end in sight, even though the new Chief of Defence Staff has given April as the deadline for the decimation of the group. However, I was glad when Prof Isaac Adewole, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan (UI), paid a courtesy call on Maj.-Gen. Ahmed Jibrin, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 2 Division of the Nigerian Army, Ibadan, Oyo State two weeks ago, which is bound to open a new vista in civil-military cooperation in the country.

    Prof Adewole said there was need for strategic research into the real reasons for the escalating violence in the country, particularly the North East where the dreaded Boko Haram sect is gradually carving out an enclave for itself. When I first read the story, I re read it a couple of times to be sure the VC is not reported or quoted out of context.

    For me, this is good news coming from the ivory tower that deserves commendation if it eventually pulls through. At the meeting with the GOC, Prof Adewole said the fight against Boko Haram requires academic and strategic research, and I tend to agree with his postulation.

    I agree because terrorism is a serious threat anywhere. It is difficult to deter and defend, and it is a high priority on almost every nation’s international co-operation agenda. The struggle against terrorism needs greater effort with a global approach and civil-military co-operation, both nationally and internationally.

    The vice chancellor proposed a framework in which UI would partner the Army to go into the “heart and soul” of the people and produce strategic methods of curbing the sect’s members.According to him, the declaration of the Chief of Defence Staff that the insurgency would end in April was realisable, with new methods and strategic research.

    Hear him: “The Chief of Defence Staff said the insurgency will end in April. I do not have the facts and information that he has. But, I believe that winning a war involves winning the heart and soul of the people. The university can partner the military to find out what are the real reasons for the insurgency,” Prof Adewole said.

    The vice chancellor also said the proposed partnership between the Army and UI’s Department of Strategic Studies would help in “re-teething and retooling” the military’s work force. This, to me, is one of the roads to travel because terrorist networks today are becoming more dispersed and less centralised. They are more reliant on smaller cells inspired by a common ideology and less directed by a central command structure. This is why it has become problematic to even identify who actually runs Boko Haram.

    There is a palpable fear almost everywhere as terrorists have declared their intention to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to inflict even more catastrophic attacks in areas where they operate. Increasingly, sophisticated use of the Internet and media has enabled terrorist to communicate, recruit, train, rally support, proselytise, and spread their propaganda without risking personal contact. This is a major source of concern to us and governments across the world.

    I must point out also that war on any form of insurgency is both a battle of arms and ideas – a fight against the terrorists and their murderous ideology. In the short run, the fight involves the application of all instruments of national power and influence to kill or capture the terrorists; deny them safe haven and control of any area and cut off their sources of funding and other resources they need to operate and survive.

    In the long run however, winning the war means winning the battle of ideas, which even the world’s only super power, the US has grudgingly admitted. Ideas can transform the embittered and disillusioned either into murderers, willing to kill innocent people, or into free peoples living harmoniously in a diverse society. This is why the UI initiative should be adopted as a template for other varsities to adopt.

    To wage the battle of ideas effectively and change the narratives, we must pinpoint what does and does not give rise to terrorism:Terrorism is not the inevitable by-product of poverty, even though poverty plays a role in recruitment drives. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were from middle-class backgrounds, and many terrorist leaders, like Osama bin Laden, are from privileged upbringings, just like our own “underwear bomber”, Abdulmuttalab.

    Might alone – even though it has its place – cannot root out terrorism, in roads can be made by identifying a combination of intertwined factors which research can help bring out.

     

    Segun Okeowo: Straightening the records

    Your write-up titled “Remembering Segun Okeowo” in The Nation of February 6, 2014 refers. It is not correct to say that the marginal increase in students daily cost of feeding from 50kobo to 70kobo was responsible for the “Ali-must-Go” students crisis of 1978 led by the late Segun Okeowo. Rather, the increase was from 50kobo per day to N1.50kobo per day.

    I was then a final year student of the University of Ibadan when the event occurred in 1978.The fact is that in our first year in 1975, feeding fees in all campus cafeterias was 70kobo per day i.e. 20kobo for breakfast, 25kobo for lunch and 25kobo for dinner.

    When the news of the Dimka’s coup of February 13, 1976 got to the campus, Nigerian students immediately took to the streets to demonstrate against the coup, knowing neither the coup plotters nor their intentions.

    As a result of this massive support, which the Nigerian students gave to Murtala’s government against the coup, the Federal Government, now headed by Gen Obasanjo after the assassination of Gen. Murtala Mohammed in appreciation and to further woo students’ support, reduced their cost of feeding from 70kobo per day to 50kobo daily i.e. 10kobo for breakfast and 20kobo for lunch and 20kobo for dinner. The students appreciated the gesture, which unfortunately did not last for more than one academic session

    In 1978, as part of Governments’ economic policy styled austerity measure, General Obasanjo increased the feeding cost from 70kobo daily to N1.50kobo daily i.e. 50kobo per meal.

    Nigerian students protested vehemently against the 300 per cent increase in the daily feeding cost. Government refused to rescind the decision and students called for the removal of Col. Ahmadu Ali as the Federal Commissioner for Education. This was the genesis of the “Ali -must- go” demonstration organised by National Union of Nigerian Students(NUNS) and led by Segun Okeowo now of blessed memory.

    Dr. U. A. Uno, Calabar

     

     

     

  • US strike ‘targets al-Shabab chief’

    The United States military has carried out a missile strike in Somalia against a suspected militant leader with ties to al-Qaeda and al-Shabab.
    US defence officials said they are trying to establish whether the strike killed the intended target, whose identity they have not confirmed.
    The BBC reports that the strike was aimed at a vehicle in a remote area of southern Somalia, near the town of Barawe.
    Al-Shabab is the main al-Qaeda-linked group in East Africa.
    The Pentagon said the target was a senior leader in the two organisations.
    A rebel leader has told the Associated Press news agency that it was Sahal Iskudhuq, an al-Shabab commander who was close to the head of the militant Islamist group, and to al-Qaeda.
    However, this has not been confirmed.
    The US launched a failed raid in Barawe – seen as a militant stronghold – in October to capture an al-Shabab commander.
    The group, which was responsible for the attack on a Kenyan shopping centre in September, has been weakened by an offensive by African Union forces on their haven in south-central Somalia.
    The US has recently deepened its involvement in the country by sending a small unit of military advisers to the capital, Mogadishu.

  • Mall attacks highlights terrorists challenge

    The September 21 attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi, in which 67 people died, showed the enormity of the challenge of terrorism facing the East African country and the ability of the security agencies to tackle the challenge.

    The Somalia terror group Al Shabaab, believed to have links with another terror group, Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack.

    As confusion held sway in the wake of the attack, the Kenyan authorities said between 10 and 15 unknown gunmen were involved, but later scaled the number down to between 4 and 5 gunmen.

    One of the developments that most Kenyans found disturbing during the four-day siege on the mall was the inter-service rivalry, which many believed led to the bungling of the operation.

    The police, who were on patrol in the area and those escorting money-bearing bullion vans were the first to respond to the attack, which saw masked gunmen, armed with automatic rifles and hand grenades, attacking hapless shoppers.

    They were later joined by the paramilitary police unit, General Service Unit (GSU), who managed to push the terrorists to the upper floors of the mall, while rescuing victims who had been taken hostage.

    Then in the evening, a special army unit, which had among others armoured personnel carriers (APC) and heavy guns, arrived at the scene and swung into action.

    However, without a clear command and communication centre, the soldiers began taking orders from their commanders, claiming the army was in charge and then pushed the policemen out of the heart of the operation.

    The regular police officers were posted to the peripheries of the mall to handle crowd control and seal possible escape routes for the gunmen.

    As more confusion enveloped the mall, the army stormed the building and traded firepower with the GSU officers, culminating in the death of one GSU officer who was apparently felled by friendly fire.

    The GSU then left the scene in protest, with no one clearly in charge and in the absence of a well-defined command and control, the situation was an accident waiting to happen.

    On the third day of the siege, the army opened fire, using heavy guns and artillery on a section of the mall where they believed the gunmen were holed up and holding the victims hostage.

    That section of the mall collapsed, and obviously many died in the process, even though it was not clear if they were terrorists or hostages.

    At the end of the operation, the security agencies started trading accusations, raising fears over the ability of the country to face down the challenge of terrorism, which is looming large.

    Security experts are still of the view that there was no need to have deployed a heavily-armed military team to fight a couple of terrorist armed with light weapon, adding that it was a situation that a well-trained police unit could have handled.

  • Court grants extradition of Nigerian al Qaeda suspect to U.S

    A Nigerian court granted a request on Wednesday for one of its citizens to be extradited to the United States to face charges of assisting the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda, Reuters reports.

    U.S. and Nigerian authorities accuse Lawal Olaniyi Babafemi of travelling to Yemen with members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in 2010 and 2011, and receiving $8,600 in order to return to Nigeria and recruit English-speaking radicals.

    “Lawal Olaniyi Babafemi … is not contesting these proceedings,” Justice Ahmed Mohammed said in the Federal High Court in Abuja.

    Babafemi, 32, also known as “Abdullah Ayatollah Mustapha”, was in the U.S for some of the time that he and AQAP are alleged to have had links.

    He returned to Nigeria last year and was detained by Nigeria’s secret service. He faces at least 10 years in jail in the U.S if convicted.

    The U.S and other Western powers fear Nigeria, which is suffering its own Sunni Islamist insurgency by Boko Haram militants in the north, could become a springboard for attacks by al Qaeda-linked militants.

     

  • U.S issues global travel alert

    U.S issues global travel alert

    The U.S state department has issued a global travel alert because of fears of an unspecified al-Qaeda attack.

    The department said the potential for an attack was particularly strong in the Middle East and North Africa.

    The United States intercepted electronic communications between senior al-Qaeda figures, according to officials quoted by the New York Times.

    BBC reports that the alert comes shortly after the U.S government announced nearly two dozen embassies and consulates would be shut on Sunday.

    The U.S state department said the alert expires on August 31 and it recommended America’s citizens travelling abroad be vigilant.

    “Current information suggests that al-Qaeda and affiliated organisations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August,” the statement said.

    The alert warned of “the potential for terrorists to attack public transportation systems and other tourist infrastructure.”