Nigerian police arrest terrorist group's spokesman

02/02/12: CNN reports that the spokesman for Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has been captured after a months-long surveillance operation, a spokesman for Nigerian police said Wednesday. Security services tracked Abu Qa Qa through his phone and are now trying to confirm his true identity, though they believe that he is a Nigerian citizen. Boko Haram has carried out multiple bombings and shootings across northern Nigeria in recent days.

01/30/12: The Washington Times reports that US officials are monitoring developments in Nigeria, where massive protests and a series of bombings by a shadowy Islamist group have rocked the West African nation, a key US oil supplier. Concerns about the security situation facing President Goodluck Jonathan mounted after a series of coordinated suicide car bombings targeted police stations in the northern city of Kano this month. State Department officials and regional analysts are downplaying the likelihood that the violence will interrupt crude oil exports.

01/24/12: The New York Times reports that the police foiled fresh attacks in the northern city of Kano on Monday, discovering 10 bomb-laden cars and hundreds of other unexploded devices from a wave of deadly violence last week. The police said they had found large numbers of explosive devices, including 10 cars packed with bombs, and about 300 drink cans, eight powdered milk cans and eight 350-kilogram drums loaded with explosives. They also revealed that five of the assailants in Friday’s attacks, which mainly targeted police buildings, were suicide bombers.

01/22/12: The Los Angeles Times reports that a militant Islamic group whose almost daily attacks have put Nigerians on edge left the country stunned this weekend after a well-coordinated strike with disturbing echoes of Al Qaeda's brand of mayhem. More than 150 people were killed in the Friday evening carnage in the northern city of Kano. The group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks, whose targets included the secret service headquarters, an immigration office and a passport office. It was the group's most deadly strike, far exceeding previous death tolls.

01/19/12: The Montreal Gazette reports that the Islamic militant suspected over the Christmas Day bomb attack on a Christian church in Nigeria has escaped less than 24 hours after his arrest. Kabiru Sokoto, said to be the deputy commander of Boko Haram, a radical Nigerian Islamist sect, is alleged to have masterminded the attack on Roman Catholic worshippers at a church close to Abuja, the capital. He escaped when the vehicle carrying him under armed police guard through the city was attacked by a gang of young men who forced it off the road. The senior police commissioner in charge of Sokoto's arrest and detention has been suspended over the incident.

11/24/11: The News Tribune reports that powerful politicians helped form a radical Muslim sect responsible for hundreds of killings this year in Nigeria to seize control of regional power and oil money, authorities allege, but now may have lost control of the monster they created. The State Security Service said it made a breakthrough in uncovering support for the extremist group Boko Haram when it arrested Ali Sanda Umar Konduga, who the agency said was one of several spokesmen for Boko Haram. The secret police agency described Konduga as a "political thug" who received orders from a member of Nigeria's parliament.

11/10/11: The Voice of America reports that Human rights advocates and Nigeria experts are calling for a careful security response to recent violence in Nigeria's north by Islamist extremists.  They warn a botched reaction could lead to even more violence. In a statement issued this week, Human Rights Watch says that an Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, is linked to attacks which have killed more than 425 people this year.

09/28/11: Newser reports that security forces have arrested a top commander and five other members of a radical Muslim sect accused of orchestrating attacks in the country's northeast that have left police, clerics and others dead. Borno state Governor Kashim Shettima stated that officials believe a negotiated peace can be reached with the sect known locally as Boko Haram. However, he warned that those involved in the group who continue the sect's sectarian campaign of assassinations and bombings will be hunted down by the increasing military and police presence in his state.

09/16/11: The Voice of America reports that Nigeria is restructuring security services to better combat a series of terrorist attacks. There is growing concern that the violence is not limited to any one group. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan says violence in the capital and across northern states is not exclusively the work of Islamic fundamentalist group Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for last month's bombing of United Nations headquarters in Abuja. President Jonathan said he is changing the architecture of security services to improve intelligence gathering.

04/25/11: The Miami Herald reports that at least 500 people died in religious rioting that followed Nigeria's presidential election, a civil rights group said Sunday, as volatile state gubernatorial elections loom this week. Muslim opposition supporters began riots as results from the April 16 election showed Christian President Goodluck Jonathan had won the vote. Many here in predominantly Muslim north of Africa's most populous nation felt the next president should have been from their region because a Muslim president died last year before he could complete his term.

04/23/11: JURIST reports that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, on Thursday announced an investigation into recent violence following national elections in Nigeria earlier this month. The preliminary investigation, a precursor to a formal investigation, comes in the wake of riots that killed over 100 and displaced more than 40,000.

01/01/11: CNN reports that Nigerian authorities on Friday arrested 92 people allegedly affiliated with a militant Islamist group that the government says is responsible for a string of recent killings in the country's northeast. Police blame the group, Boko Haram, for attacks Wednesday that left three police officers and one civilian dead in Maiduguru and for Christmas Eve attacks on two Christian churches in the city that left five dead.

12/28/10: CNN reports that three men were arrested with bombs in their possession one day after blasts ripped through the Nigerian city of Jos on Christmas Eve.

11/23/10: The New York Times reports that police in northern Nigeria arrested 152 suspected members of a radical Muslim sect accused of 25 targeted killings in recent months, including those of politicians, religious leaders and police officers. Borno state’s police chief said officers were searching house to house in the city of Maiduguri for suspected members of the Boko Haram sect.

08/17/09: CNN reports that police in northern Nigeria on Saturday detained almost 4,000 members of an Islamic community, claiming the group posed a potential violent threat, the police commissioner in the Nigerian state of Niger told CNN.

08/12/09: The Washington Post reports that the draconian amputation sentences warned of by human rights activists and the religious oppression feared by Christians on the adoption of Sharia in northern Nigeria have mostly not come to pass. But neither has the utopia envisioned by backers of sharia law, who believed politicians' promises that it would end decades of corruption and pillaging by civilian and military rulers.

08/05/09:  VOA reports that several rights groups and opposition parties in Nigeria have appealed to the government to investigate allegations of illegal killings by security forces during the recent clashes. Nigerian authorities say most of those who died during a week of brutal violence in the north were members of the Islamic sect Boko Haram, killed in clashes with security forces.

08/01/09: The Atlantic has an opinion piece arguing that if the Obama administration is really interested in conducting America's foreign relations differently, it should take a deep seated interest in the situation in Nigeria right now.

07/31/09: The Times (UK) reports that Nigerian security forces claimed to have defeated a well-armed Islamist sect after four days of bloody fighting that left hundreds dead and forced thousands to flee their homes in the northern town of Maiduguri. Army soldiers captured Mohamed Yusuf, the leader of the sect, and took him to a barracks. He was later transferred to the police and shot dead in their custody.

Thread: Terrorist Attacks in Northern Nigeria / Boko Haram