BOKO HARAM

[Phone Wind]

The problem that the government now has is that Boko Haram is allied to Al Qaeda In the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), but it's splintering into different groups, which have different aims and different attitudes to violence and kidnapping, so any talks with the leaders of Boko Haram won't really solve the problem as new sects such as the one responsible for the latest wave of kidnappings in Nigeria and Cameroon, appear. The new one is Ansaru who say they want only targeted attacks in defence of Muslims and have publicly said that Boko Haram's style of operation is "inhuman to the Muslim ummah [nation]". Ansaru are believed to have been responsible for the kidnap of the British and Italian men in Sokoto (who were kiilled in the subsequent - botched - rescue attempt), the killing of 2 Nigerian soldiers with an IED as they were preparing to deploy to Mali, the kidnapping of a Frenchman near Katsina last December, the kidnapping of 7 expatriates from the Setraco camp last week and the kidnapping of a French family (including 4 children) in northern Cameroon close to the Nigerian border last Sunday.

Jama'atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Bidalis Sudan, means, "Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa", is thought to have been formed in January of last year. In December, French journal Jeune Afrique-L'Intelligent said Ansaru was led by the little-known Abu Ussamata al-Ansary. It quoted a statement by him as saying that the Nigerian government was "incapable of defending Muslims in inter-religious violence with Christians". The group also said it was fighting to reclaim "the lost dignity of Muslims of black Africa" and the creation of an Islamic caliphate from Niger to Cameroon and northern Nigeria. Some analysts believe it split from Boko Haram, because it was opposed to the increasing number of Nigerian civilians - both Muslims and Christians - killed in bombings.

A spokesperson for the London-based Chatham House think tank, Elizabeth Donnelly, the Africa program manager said, "There is a danger in attributing everything to Boko Haram,"' "Boko Haram has the profile in Nigeria and so it is easy to assume that they are the most active group, but the situation in the north is very fluid."

An un-named US official has said that there are "gaps in the information about what is going on exactly with Boko Haram and any of the splinter groups". "Even in painting a picture of where the lines are between these different groups, and how much of the criminal overlaps into it - all of this stuff is very difficult," he said.

The US official, however, said he took the claims issued by Ansaru seriously and believed the group to be a Boko Haram offshoot, as others have described it, with more global jihadist rhetoric.

In claims, Ansaru has mentioned France's intervention in Mali and European nations' "atrocities done to the religion of Allah".

Donnelly of Chatham House said criminal groups may be engaging in kidnappings in the region because a market for trading hostages had developed, with the potential to bring in major amounts of cash in ransom money.

"I don't think it was initially at the outset about France being in Mali," she said. "I think it was probably more about revenue generation."

Whatever the real truth is, it's obvious that the Nigerian government will find it extremely difficult to track what's happening with these groups, especially as fears have been raised that some politicians and senior military officials may be either secretly sympathetic to their aims or actively helping them.

I think BALEWA is right to have concerns about layovers in some of the areas mentioned unless security is considerably beefed up, but even then, with Ansaru using dynamite to gain access to well-protected camps, it's obvious that the design and construction of supposedly-secure compounds needs to be thought out a lot more and approved by experts in that field.