Operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) have arrested two men in Kano suspected to be members of Al'Qaeda.
The men whose names were given as Abubakar Haruna and Isah A. are said to be in their twenties.
They were picked up in Kano following weeks of intense intelligence gathering linking them with visits to several countries suspected to have contacts with known terrorist networks, particularly, Algeria.
Sources within the State Security Service told THISDAY in Kano that upon the terror alert by the US government through its emebassy in Nigeria, counter-terror detectives were drafted to different parts of the country with support from Western intelligence.
THISDAY gathered that through the American intelligence network, some Nigerians were discovered to have made some trips to a particular area in Algeria, which is believed to be a training camp for terrorists and were even said to have spent some time without being able to give any tangible or legitimate reason for their trip.
However, the exact period of such trainings could not be ascertained as at press time
They were said to have been rounded up by the detectives in their hide-out in Kano while those arrested are still being questioned to unveil their Nigerian sponsors.
It was gathered that two pistols and some incriminating documents were also found on them. The calibre of the pistols according to security sources were considered too sophisticated for anybody that has nothing to do with terror attack.

A senior officer of the service however said those arrested were connected to the US alert. I would be recalled that a few days to the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, the United State Embassy in Lagos had announced that American and other Western countries' installations were at risk of terrorist attack in Nigeria but officials later played down the warning saying no specific threat had prompted the announcement

source: ThisDay - Ibrahim Shuaibu from Kano 31/10/07

Hmmm

This should be treated with skepticism. It happens all over the world, if your passport is stamped with the port entry stamp of certain countries, you become the usual suspect.

I'm afraid thats the way the world bounces right now.

OduduwaSon:

This should be treated with skepticism. It happens all over the world, if your passport is stamped with the port entry stamp of certain countries, you become the usual suspect.

I'm afraid thats the way the world bounces right now.

yeah, they label them terrorist but what happens later no accurate data to back up their claims

mdsocks:

yeah, they label them terrorist but what happens later no accurate data to back up their claims

yeah, lets wait until they blow up Abuja. Mohammed's foot soldiers are a scourge to this earth.

davidylan:

yeah, lets wait until they blow up Abuja. Muhammad's foot soldiers are a scourge to this earth.

This guy, you again. You never get tired do you, please be more constructive in your criticisms.

OduduwaSon:

This guy, you again. You never get tired do you, please be more constructive in your criticisms.

like patting suicide bombers on the back for a job well done?

davidylan:

like patting suicide bombers on the back for a job well done?

If thats what your faculty of reasoning tells you and it makes you happy, good luck!

@OduduwaSon

Thanks very much, he is the nairaland ultimate twister

No real facts to support hi claims
He is always blindfolded by religion

@davidylan
And what of those they have arrested in the past as terrorist
how many buildings in Abuja have they blew
I think the weather there is getting to your brain

Nigeria interrogates terrorist suspects

November 14, 2007

Nigeria's secret police are said to be interrogating suspects arrested in connection with their alleged links with Al-Qaeda. Some media reports suggest that 10 men were apprehended. The State Security Services are not divulging much information at this stage due to the sensitivity of the case.
But sources within the service have told Nigerian reporters that they are investigating a wider web around the suspects already in their custody. Meanwhile, Ademole Adeyemo, political editor for This Day, who broke the story, says radical Islamists do not have many supporters in Nigeria.
Despite growing concern over possible threats by Al-Qaeda in Africa's most populated country, the Nigerian authority has to date not been able to provide substantial evidence to this effect. But religious tensions in the Muslim dominated north have fuelled these worries.
Thousands died when riots broke out in 2002 after 12 states in the north insisted on implementing a stricter version of Islamic Sharia law. But Adeyome says it is unlikely that groups linked to Al-Qaeda will win much ground in the country.
Political analysts in Nigeria say Islamic extremists do not have a large support base in the Muslim dominated north of the country. This follows the arrest in the north of Nigeria of several suspects believed to have ties with the Al-Qaeda network. The suspects are expected to appear in court this week.

Source: http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/west_africa/0,2172,159219,00.html

Has anyone here been to Islam-a-bad recently?

You mean in Al-Kano-eda?

Nigeria charges Islamist suspects with "terrorism"

Thu 22 Nov 2007

Nigerian prosecutors on Thursday accused five suspected Islamist militants of preparing to attack government targets and said three of them had received training at a "terrorist camp" in Algeria.The men were arrested earlier this month in northern Nigeria by the State Security Services (SSS), a secret police force.One of the charges filed on Thursday said three of the men had trained, between 2005 and August 2007, in Algeria with the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) "with intent to attack government facilities and cause insurrection in Nigeria".Since January, the GSPC has renamed itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb after winning approval from Osama bin Laden to brand itself as an al Qaeda affiliate. It has carried out a series of high-profile urban bombings.The U.S. embassy warned in September that Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer, was at risk of "terrorist attack", and bin Laden once named the country as ripe for jihad, but Nigeria has yet to see any attack in the style of al Qaeda.The charge sheet said the five men, all in their early 30s, "did conspire to commit terrorist acts".One of the charges said they had "one AK47 rifle, two live ammunitions, seven dynamites, fertiliser (urea) and 11 explosives devices with intent to use same to attack government facilities and installations in Lagos and Ibadan".Two of the men were also accused of involvement in the fatal shooting of a man in February 2005. No details of the incident were given, nor was any explanation provided about whether it had any connection with the other charges.The case was adjourned until Nov. 29, when the men would take a plea.Police and the secretive SSS have made sporadic arrests of suspected jihadists for some years and trials have been launched but there has been no conviction, and no conclusive evidence of al Qaeda's presence in Nigeria has been made public.Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is divided about equally between Christians and Muslims. The two communities usually live side by side peacefully but there are occasional outbreaks of religious violence.Tensions worsened in the northern part of the country, which is predominantly Muslim, after 12 state governments introduced a stricter enforcement of sharia law in 2000, alienating sizeable Christian minorities. Thousands were killed in sporadic riots.Against this backdrop, some Western diplomats and analysts have expressed concerns that Nigeria could become a target for militant Islamists. The U.S embassy said in an official warning to American residents of Nigeria in September that unspecified targets for attack included Western interests.

Source: http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL22253541.html