Boko Haram – We're Against Them – But Ignored Nigeria's Call for Help

[longknife]

Hypocrisy at the highest levels of our government? Of course.

Nigeria went so far as to hire of big shop lobbying firm in Washington to beg for help in combating the radical Islamic group. What did the Obama administration do in response? NOTHING!

So then we see Moochele with her ridiculous stunt of calling for the CHRISTIAN girls to be returned. Why wasn't she concerned about that months ago?

So, you want the full story? Go to the ABC News site @ Nigeria Requested US Intel And Military Gear to Fight Terror, Docs Show - ABC News

 

[Mr. H.]

Nigerian president refused help to search for kidnapped girls | Sun.Star

 

[jon_berzerk]

while the administration has a declared hashtag war

with boko haram

over night

boko haram Kidnaps still more children

kills villagers and blows up a bridge

Boko Haram kidnaps more children, kills villagers in Nigeria | New York Post

 

[waltky]

Took `em long enough...

UN Blacklists Nigerian Militant Group Boko Haram
May 22, 2014 — The U.N. Security Council, acting at the request of Nigeria, on Thursday imposed sanctions on Boko Haram in a bid to cut off funding and weapons to the extremist group.

Nigeria had requested the measure on Monday because of the recent surge in Boko Haram’s violent activities. The council moved swiftly, formally adding the group to its sanctions list, thus freezing assets and embargoing arms. Australian Ambassador Gary Quinlan, who heads the al-Qaida sanctions committee, told reporters this is a first step toward cutting off international support to Boko Haram.

The sanctions aim to deter “the people who might be tempted to supply some kind of assistance” financially or through the sale of arms, Quinlan said, adding the council wanted “to dry up any sort of support for this group.” Boko Haram, based in northeast Nigeria, has killed thousands of people since 2010 in its bid to force the government to adopt strict Islamic law. The group has been in the international spotlight since abducting almost 300 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria in mid-April.

Stepped-up attacks

In recent weeks, the group has stepped up the frequency and intensity of its attacks. Nigerian officials believe the militants are responsible for twin bombings in the central city of Jos on Tuesday that killed at least 118 people. The militants are also blamed for attacks on three Borno state villages overnight Tuesday in which 48 people were killed. Quinlan said there was clear evidence that Boko Haram fighters have trained with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and fought alongside al-Qaida-linked groups in Mali. He also said that they have learned how to make improvised explosive devices, a hallmark of al-Qaida, and that the group’s leader has made strong statements supporting other al-Qaida affiliates in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said that adding Boko Haram to the council’s al-Qaida sanctions list is an important step in supporting the Nigerian government’s efforts to defeat the group and hold its leaders accountable for atrocities. Power said the listing also will “close off important avenues of funding, travel and weapons to Boko Haram,” while showing global unity against what she called the militants’ “savage actions.” Earlier this week, lawmakers extended a year-old state of emergency in the northeast, where Boko Haram has been most active.

UN Blacklists Nigerian Militant Group Boko Haram

 

[Lipush]

Sad.

 

[SteadyMercury]

Oh come on the partisan hacks in here would have been all over the US govt for spending taxpayer dollars overseas instead of on roads/bridges/whatever here in the US and there would have been threads 'o plenty about how we shouldn't be sticking our noses into the conflict in another foreign country.

 

[waltky]

Teachers go out on strike in support of kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls...

Hundreds of Nigerian teachers strike over kidnapped schoolgirls
23 May 2014: Nigerian teachers stage nationwide rallies over Boko Haram's deadly terror campaign against children and colleagues

Nigerian teachers have held a strike and staged rallies nationwide to protest against the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram and the killing of nearly as many teachers during its insurgency. Gunmen from the Islamist group stormed a school outside the remote north-eastern town of Chibok on 14 April, carting away some 270 girls in trucks. More than 50 have escaped but at least 200 remain in captivity, as do scores of girls kidnapped previously. The president of the National Union of Teachers, Michael Alogba-Olukoya, told reporters Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates as "western education is sinful", had killed 173 teachers in the past five years. "All schools nationwide shall be closed as the day will be our day of protest against the abduction of the Chibok female students and the heartless murder of the 173 teachers," he said.

In Maiduguri, capital of the north-eastern state of Borno, where the insurgency is most intense, some 40 teachers marched to the office of Governor Kashim Shettima. The demonstrators chanted: "Bring back our girls" and waved placards reading: "Vulnerable schools should be fenced". Shettima went to the gates of the compound to speak to the teachers, who wore black union vests over their traditional robes and were escorted by the army. President Goodluck Jonathan and the military have come under intense criticism for their slow reaction to the mass abductions, although last week Nigeria accepted help from the US, UK, France and China. The US has deployed about 80 military personnel to Chad in its effort to help find the girls, President Barack Obama told Congress on Wednesday.

A Nigerian teacher takes part in a rally in Lagos.

Boko Haram has threatened to sell the schoolgirls into slavery, but has also offered to swap them for jailed militants. The group wants to create a breakaway Islamic state in the Muslim and Christian country of 170 million people. Its militants have attacked hundreds of schools, killing hundreds of teachers and students. No teachers were killed in the Chibok attack. "We remain resolute in our resolve to continue the campaign even as we mourn the death of our colleagues until our girls are brought back safe and alive and the perpetrators of the heinous crime are brought to book," Alogba-Olukoya said.

In Lagos, Nigeria's southern commercial metropolis of 21 million people, approximately 350 teachers gathered in Gani Fawehinmi park. One carried a placard reading: "You can't intimidate us." "Children's lives are being threatened; kidnappings all over the place; stealing, maiming of life – that's what we are saying should stop," Ojo Veronica, a teacher, told Reuters TV. The Chibok kidnapping has drawn international attention to Nigeria and Boko Haram, much of it driven by the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign, which has been supported by Michelle Obama and Angelina Jolie. The Boko Haram insurgency has killed an estimated 5,000 people since an initial uprising in 2009.

Hundreds of Nigerian teachers strike over kidnapped schoolgirls | Global development | theguardian.com

 

[waltky]

Obama gonna sit this one out...

Obama not seeking plans for US troops to rescue Nigerian girls
May 25, 2014 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration isn’t asking the Pentagon to develop options for a mission to free Nigerian schoolgirls taken hostage by the Boko Haram terrorist group, said two U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

American military personnel are advising and supporting the Nigerians, but the administration isn’t actively considering sending U.S. forces to join in a rescue operation, said a White House official who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the mission publicly. The situation, like the Syrian civil war and the conflicts in South Sudan and elsewhere, pits humanitarian instincts against hard realities for a U.S. administration wary of foreign entanglements in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A larger U.S. role in rescuing the girls may not be in America’s national interest, said Brian Jenkins, a counterterrorism analyst at the Rand Corp. and a former U.S. special operations officer. "Without sounding cynical, these are Nigerian hostages, held by Nigerian terrorists in Nigeria who are possibly making demands on Nigeria’s government," he said. "I think we want to tread carefully in insinuating ourselves into that matter, thereby assuming responsibility for outcomes." The 80 Air Force personnel sent to neighboring Chad for a drone reconnaissance mission and the 16 military participants in a U.S. advisory group in Nigeria are the only U.S. armed forces assigned to assist Nigeria for now, U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Thursday.

Nevertheless, more than a month after the abduction of some 250 girls and young women, President Barack Obama is coming under pressure from some members of Congress to devote more military assets to helping Nigeria hunt for them and support its fight against Boko Haram, which has killed more than 4,000 people in recent years. "Everybody knows what needs to be done - find those girls and bring the people leading and involved with Boko Haram to justice," Texas Republican Mike Conaway, chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism, said following a closed- door House briefing on the situation yesterday. "But that’s easier said than done."

The U.S. will be flying an unarmed Predator drone from Chad over an area of northeastern Nigeria the size of West Virginia, even though U.S. intelligence officials think many of the girls have been sold off, split into small groups or taken to neighboring countries. Boko Haram kidnapped the girls April 14 in a raid on a school in the northeastern town of Chibok near the border with Chad. "It would be hard to overestimate the complexity, first of locating the hostages, and then in considering how that might be resolved successfully," said Amanda Dory, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs. "They may or may not all be in Nigeria," she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this week. "The sheer number of individuals involved, the complexity of the terrain - jungle for a great part of it - and the movement that could be associated over the weeks that have elapsed, creating a greater area of operations, make this a very difficult environment."

MORE

 

[hipeter924]

Unfortunately another African state that has gone to hell, thanks to religious fanatics.

 

[waltky]

Boko Haram wants to exchange girls for members captured by Nigeria...

IMPASSE IN RESCUE OF NIGERIAN GIRLS
May 27,`14 -- Nigeria's military chiefs and the president are apparently split over how to free nearly 300 schoolgirls abducted by Islamic extremists, with the military saying use of force endangers the hostages and the president reportedly ruling out a prisoner-hostage swap.

The defense chief, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, announced Monday night that the military has located the girls, but offered no details or a way forward. "We can't go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back," he said. Previous military attempts to free hostages have led to the prisoners being killed by their abductors, including the deaths of two engineers, a Briton and an Italian, in Sokoto in March 2012. A human rights activist close to mediators said a swap of detained extremists for the girls was negotiated a week ago but fell through because President Goodluck Jonathan refused to consider an exchange. The activist spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the activist is not permitted to speak to press.

Britain's Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds, said two weeks ago that the Nigerian leader had told him categorically he would not consider a prisoner swap. Community leader Pogu Bitrus of Chibok, the town from which the girls were abducted on April 15, says authorities are speaking with "discordant voices" and the president appears under pressure to negotiate. "The pressure is there if his own lieutenants are saying one (thing). Because if they cannot use force, the deduction is that there must be negotiation," Bitrus said. "And if their commander-in-chief, the president, is saying that he will not negotiate, then they are not on the same page."

Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno state, the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremists and the northeastern state from which the girls were abducted, said recently: "We impress on the federal authorities to work with our friends that have offered to assist us to ensure the safe recovery of the innocent girls." Nigeria's military and government have faced national and international outrage over their failure to rescue the girls seized by Boko Haram militants from a remote northeastern school six weeks ago. Jonathan finally accepted international help. American planes have been searching for the girls and Britain, France, Israel and other countries have sent experts in surveillance and hostage negotiation.

A Boko Haram video shows some of the kidnapped girls reciting Quranic verses in Arabic and two of them explaining why they had converted from Christianity to Islam in captivity. Unverified reports indicate that two may have died of snake bites, that some have been forced to marry their abductors and that others may have been taken across borders into Chad and Cameroon. Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have killed 54 people in two separate attacks in northeastern Nigeria, local officials said Tuesday. In Borno state gunmen killed nine people in two remote villages on Monday night, said Nglamuda Ibrahim a local government official. The armed men shot at villagers, burned their homes and hoisted white flags with Arabic letters, the official said.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Islamists taking over villages in Nigeria...

WITNESSES: BOKO HARAM SEIZING VILLAGES IN NIGERIA
Jun 4,`14 -- Boko Haram militants are taking over villages in northeastern Nigeria, killing and terrorizing civilians and political leaders, witnesses say, as the Islamic fighters make a comeback from a year-long military offensive aimed at crushing them.

Nigeria's military has insisted that the big influx of troops and a year-old state of emergency in three states that cover about one-sixth of the country gives them the power to detain suspects, take over buildings and lock down any area has the extremists on the run. But while Boko Haram has in large part been pushed out of cities in the northeast, they have been seizing villages with thatched-roof huts in the semi-arid region where they once held sway, boldly staking their claim by hoisting their black flags with white Arabic lettering, and making large swaths of Nigeria no-go regions for the military.

Nglamuda Ibrahim, a local government official, says the militants hoisted their flags in Ashigashiya, which borders Cameroon, several weeks ago without interference from the security forces. Muhammed Gavva, a member of one of the vigilante groups formed last year, named another dozen villages that also fell to Boko Haram, also close to the Cameroonian border, with no action taken by Nigerian security forces. He said one road to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state where the military joint task force has its headquarters, is so dangerous that even soldiers don't dare to travel it. "We have long informed the military officials about this. They are aware but we don't know what they are doing about that," Gavva said. The seized villages are near Gwoza, a regional political center whose emir was killed in a Boko Haram ambush on his convoy last week. Emir are religious and traditional rulers who have been targeted for speaking out against Boko Haram's extremism.

Red Cross personnel search for remains at the site of one of Tuesday's car bombs in Jos, Nigeria. Boko Haram militants are taking over villages in northeastern Nigeria, killing and terrorizing civilians and political leaders, witnesses say, as the Islamic fighters make a comeback from a year-long military offensive aimed at crushing them.

Borno Gov. Kashim Shettima traveled on Saturday to Gwoza to pay his respects to the fallen traditional leader and was quoted as saying it was a terrifying ride. "If I say I was not petrified travelling through that ... road to Gwoza I would be lying because that road had been designated a no-go area for about two months now due to the incessant attacks and killings that occur there," the governor was quoted as saying by Information Nigeria, a web site. A local journalist who was in the convoy that was escorted by 150 soldiers counted at least 16 towns and villages that were deserted along the 135 kilometer (85 mile) route, according to the local media report.

Shettima earlier told The Associated Press that he was having the accounts of Boko Haram seizing villages investigated and that he couldn't confirm them. Gavva said the Islamic rebels exert iron control over the villages. "They are in charge there. You cannot do anything on your own without their permission. Even if the villagers want to go and till their farmlands, they had to first contact them for permission," said Gavva. The group doesn't allow young men to leave their homes, he said.

Civilians frustrated by the military's apparent inability to combat Boko Haram have formed vigilante groups like Gavva's. They detain Boko Haram suspects and hand them over to the authorities. The move was supported and encouraged by the authorities. Hundreds of detainees have died in military custody, Amnesty International found in its investigations. Defense headquarters spokesman Chris Olukolade in the capital Abuja didn't answer calls to his mobile phone and didn't reply to an email seeking comment on the village takeovers. The joint task force officers in Maiduguri said they are not authorized to speak to the press.

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[waltky]

How long is this going to be allowed to go on?...

Little Progress Seen in Bid to Rescue Nigerian Schoolgirls Held by Terrorists
June 5, 2014 – More than 50 days have passed since al-Qaeda-linked terrorists seized hundreds of schoolgirls in northern Nigeria with little progress seen, but on Wednesday night G7 leaders meeting in Brussels reiterated their support for efforts to rescue them.

“We condemn the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by Boko Haram as an unconscionable crime and intend do everything possible to support the Nigerian government to return these young women to their homes and to bring the perpetrators to justice,” President Obama and the leaders of Canada, Japan, Britain, Germany, France and Italy said in a statement. The statement, which covered a range of foreign policy issues from Ukraine to Syria, did not elaborate, but it did include a broader commitment to promote human rights, including religious freedom, and to end discrimination and violence against women, including “child, early and forced marriage.” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau earlier threatened to sell the abducted secondary school girls – 85 percent of whom are Christians, according to the Nigerian government – as sex slaves or “marry” them off.

In mid-May a State Department-led interagency group including 16 military personnel from U.S. Africa Command was deployed in Nigeria to aid the effort to locate and free the around 280 missing girls. The Pentagon reported that the U.S. military was flying manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft over the area, which includes remote parts of north-eastern Nigeria and territory in neighboring Chad and Cameroon. The Nigerian military claimed last week to have established the girls’ whereabouts, but to be constrained by safety concerns from taking action. The State Department said it had no “independent information” to back up the claim, which was also met by considerable skepticism in Nigeria.

Nigerian women rally in Abuja on May 28, urging the government to rescue nearly 300 schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group in April.

The authorities’ handling of the episode – and the Islamist group’s violent campaign in general – has been widely criticized. (A major opposition party has called President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration “incompetent, clueless and rudderless.”) The most recent action to draw strong criticism was a statement Monday by the top police official in Abuja banning – purportedly for security reasons – what have become regular public demonstrations by campaigners rallying under the name “#BringBackOurGirls.” Following an outcry the police backtracked, saying in a statement there was no ban, but advising citizens to exercise caution, citing “a recent intelligence report of a likely infiltration and hijack of otherwise innocuous and peaceful protests by some criminal elements having links with insurgents.”

A senior government information official, Mike Omeri, said Wednesday the government was “totally committed and focused towards ensuring that our beloved children, kidnapped girls, are returned safe and sound.” “As we said before, all options in line with international best practices are open in this case,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted Omeri as telling a briefing in the capital, saying that he indicated that negotiating with the terrorists was one such option. Officials have given confused and sometimes contradictory statements over recent weeks about whether the government would consider doing a deal with Boko Haram.

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[waltky]

No change in the missing Nigerian schoolgirls situation...

Nigeria says more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls still missing
Fri Jun 20, 2014 - More than 200 of the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militant group Boko Haram are still missing, an official said on Friday, more than two months after a brazen and brutal kidnapping in the northeast.

So far, 57 of the girls have been reunited with their families while 219 are still unaccounted for, Brigadier General Ibrahim Sabo, the chairman of the government's fact-finding committee on the kidnapping, said in a statement.

Women react during a protest demanding security forces search harder for 200 schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militants two weeks ago, outside Nigeria's parliament in Abuja

Boko Haram militants on April 14 stormed a secondary school in the village of Chibok, about 150 km (93 miles) from Maiduguri - the cradle of the insurgency, packed the teenagers onto trucks and disappeared into the border area near Cameroon.

The attack shocked Nigerians, who have grown used to hearing about atrocities in an increasingly bloody five-year-old Islamist insurgency in the north.

Nigeria says more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls still missing | Reuters