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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday named three alleged leaders of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram as "foreign terrorists", the first time it has blacklisted members of the Islamist group blamed for attacks across Africa's most populous nation.
The State Department identified the three as Abubakar Shekau, who it called the "most visible" leader of the group, and Abubakar Adam Kambar and Khalid al-Barnawi, who it said were tied both to Boko Haram and to al Qaeda's north African wing.
"Under Shekau's leadership, Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in northern Nigeria, its primary area of operation. In the last 18 months, Boko Haram or associated militants have killed more than 1,000 people," the State Department said in an announcement.
"These designations demonstrate the United States' resolve in diminishing the capacity of Boko Haram to execute violent attacks," it said.
The action by the State and Treasury departments, first reported by Reuters on Wednesday, follows growing pressure on the Obama Administration to take stronger action against Boko Haram, which has stepped up attacks on Christian places of worship this year in its drive to establish an Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria.
U.S. officials say the decision to list individual Boko Haram members, rather than apply the more sweeping "Foreign Terrorist Organization" label to the group as a whole as some U.S. lawmakers have demanded, reflected a desire not to elevate the group's profile.
The action freezes any assets the three men have in the United States, and bar U.S. persons from any transactions with them.
RISING PRESSURE
The United States has signaled growing concern over Islamist extremist groups operating in Africa, particularly al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has expanded its influence in the lawless Sahel region and funds operations by collecting kidnap ransoms or siphoning off the drug trade.
The United States has also sought to curb the influence of al Shabaab, the militant group which has seized control of large areas of south and central Somalia and has been blamed for attacks elsewhere in east Africa.
Both AQIM and al Shabaab are already on the official U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations, which makes them key targets in the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign.
The State Department has been under pressure to act against Boko Haram for months.
In January, Lisa Monaco, the Justice Department's top national security official, sent a letter to the State Department arguing that the Nigerian group met the criteria for a "foreign terrorist" listing because it either engages in terrorism that threatens the United States or has a capability or intent to do so.
Boko Haram increasingly is seen as a potent threat to Nigeria, the continent's most populous state and major oil producer, and as part of growing arc of Islamist extremist groups stretching across northern Africa.
Republican senators led by Scott Brown of Massachusetts have introduced legislation requiring the State Department to determine whether Boko Haram should be designated as a terrorist group.
Republican Representative Patrick Meehan, who chairs a Homeland Security subcommittee in the House, also introduced an amendment that would force the administration to add Boko Haram to the terrorism list or explain why it was not doing so.
But a group of academic experts on Africa sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month urging her not to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group, saying such a move could backfire by enhancing the group's reputation among potential recruits and other militants.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-adds-first-boko-haram-members-terrorist-list-164150056.html

Some senior police officers would face the police disciplinary panel for allegedly allowing former chairman of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on fuel subsidy Farouk Lawan who was detained over alleged $620, 000 bribery scandals to sneak out of the police detention facility and go home.
Lawan sneaked out of the police headquarters on Thursday night while in detention with the aid of some policemen and went home. He took bath at home and ate dinner before returning to his cell. Already three policemen were being questioned over the matter.

A source said about two senior officers apart from those being investigated who were found to have a hand in the matter, will face disciplinary panel.

He said Forouk was illegally allowed to go home while in detention.

The police Special Task Force investigating the matter are yet to retrieve the bribe money.

http://dailytrust.com.ng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=165482:farouk-top-police-officers-face-disciplinary-panel&catid=1:news&Itemid=2

A new pan-Yoruba group, Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA) said today that it has “trusted” information that Boko Haram, the dreaded extremist Islamic group, is likely to attack Lagos and Ibadan in the next few days or in the month of July.

“Boko Haram thinks the best way to get attention is through sustained attacks, but the surest way to dominate national discuss and stir critical opinions is to take the battle to the country’s economic hub, which is Lagos and Ibadan,” the group said in a statement in Ibadan signed by its Secretary for Internal Affairs, Alhaji Mufatau Adedoyin. “That is the new thinking of the Boko Haram leadership.”

AOKOYA expressed regret that the political leadership of the South West has no concrete plans to curtail the “almost inevitable” suicide bomb attacks that the Islamic group may unleash on the largely urbanized Yoruba region.

It said that the frequent activities of Boko Haram in Kogi State, plus last weekend’s bomb attacks on Kaduna city are clear indications that cities in South West Nigeria must be prepared for their own dose of suicide attacks from Islamic fundamentalists pushing for sectarian leadership of the country. The group described the bombing of ECWA church in Kaduna as a calculated attack on the Yoruba people, as they are the most notable worshipers in ECWA churches across the country.

Said the statement: “We have intelligence information that Boko Haram will attack the largely vulnerable Yoruba cities on or before the month of July this year. We fear the carnage that will result from violent attacks on Yoruba cities. It is naïve to assume that Boko Haram will spare Lagos, Ibadan, Warri or any of the Yoruba cities. At present, the Yoruba political leadership relies on the Nigerian Police and the State Security Service, (SSS). These groups are too polarized, corrupt, inept, politicized, ill-motivated and hunted by low morale to be able to offer any hope for the Yoruba people.”

AOKOYA, which describes itself as a Yoruba self-determination group, noted that as Nigeria inches towards 100 years of the forceful amalgamation of the country by imperial lords, “the dissolution of the country should be a natural expectation [/b]given the tear, sorrow and blood” that has been Nigeria’s story since 1914.

[b]“There cannot be any redeemer for a nation that is destined and designed to collapse,” it said. “We urge the Yoruba people to rise up and work hard to ensure minimum casualty in our search for the inevitable Oduduwa Republic. We seek alliance with the Middle-Belt, Igbos and the South-South, for the greater future of a traumatized population that have been pushed into the cesspool of underdevelopment, hunger and starvation in the hands of a hateful social and political system that offers nothing but destruction and the spilling of human blood.”

Calling for the assistance of the international community to Nigeria “to prevent the carnage that may arise from the inevitable break-up of the country,” AOKOYA said the bombings will not abate simply because the social and political contradictions of a diverse, plural society being forced to live under one law and value has reached its breaking point.

“The issue is no longer whether the country will break-up, the real issue now is when and how,” the statement said. “The people face the grim reality of either a violent break-up or ceaseless confrontation with blood and anguish in the hands of extremist forces.”