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“All the
characteristics fit their profile. Sadly,
these attacks are wholly consistent with
Boko Haram’s increasingly violent ideology.
I remain greatly concerned about their
stated intent to connect with Al Qaeda
senior leadership, most likely through Al
Qaeda in the lands of the Islamic Maghreb
American
military, intelligence and counterterrorism
officials have voiced alarm in recent months
about the growing operational abilities of
Boko Haram and its potential ties to Al
Qaeda’s affiliates in North Africa, Yemen
and Somalia.
“There’s no
reason to doubt Boko Haram’s claim,” Gen.
Carter F. Ham, who leads the American
military’s Africa Command, said in an e-mail
Monday. “All the characteristics fit their
profile. Sadly, these attacks are wholly
consistent with Boko Haram’s increasingly
violent ideology. I remain greatly concerned
about their stated intent to connect with Al
Qaeda senior leadership, most likely through
Al Qaeda in the lands of the Islamic
Maghreb.”
General Ham
met in August with Nigerian military and
security officials, saying the United States
would be willing to share intelligence and
offer training to Nigerian security forces.
In September,
General Ham said that three African
terrorist organizations — the Shabab in
Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
across the Sahel region of northern Africa
and Boko Haram in northern Nigeria — “have
very explicitly and publicly voiced an
intent to target Westerners, and the U.S.
specifically.”
General Ham
said that he was particularly worried about
“the voiced intent of the three
organizations to more closely collaborate
and synchronize their efforts.”
Defense
Department officials said in mid-September
that a large car bomb detonated in August by
Boko Haram militants bore signature elements
of the improvised explosives used by the
Qaeda offshoot in the Sahel.
Boko Haram,
whose name means “Western education is
sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, came
to national prominence in 2009, when its
members attacked police stations near its
base of Maiduguri, a dusty northeastern city
on the cusp of the Sahara Desert. Nigeria’s
military violently suppressed the attack,
crushing the sect’s mosque into shards and
arresting its leader, who died in police
custody.
About 700
people died during the violence, and many
analysts and residents say the Nigerian
government’s heavy-handed response has
frequently worsened the situation, killing
civilians and helping the group recruit new
volunteers to its cause.
American
officials said the group initially carried
out small-scale, hit-and-run assassinations
from the back of motorbikes after the 2009
riot. But in the past year, Boko Haram has
demonstrated a newfound sophistication and
planning of larger-scale attacks. It claimed
responsibility for a Nov. 4 attack on
Damaturu, Yobe state’s capital, which killed
more than 100. The group also claimed the
Aug. 24 suicide car bombing of the United
Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital
that killed 24 people and wounded 116
others.
It has
engineered other daring attacks, including
the June bombing of Nigeria’s federal police
headquarters, the assassination of a
prominent politician and a prison break that
freed more than 700 inmates.
Courtesy New
York Times |
