Monday 12 May 2014
B’Haram, others received $3m from bin Laden –Report
The violent sect, Boko Haram and other groups
in northern Nigeria received $3m from Osama
bin Laden in 2002, according to a report by
some United States intelligence analysts.
Bin Laden was said to have dispatched an aide to
Nigeria to hand out the seed money in naira to a
wide array of Salafist political organisations that
shared al Qaeda’s goal of imposing Islamic rule.
According to a report in a United States-based
newspaper, The Daily Beast, the Al-Qaeda
founder helped provide Boko Haram’s seed
money.
Boko Haram was founded by Mohammed Yusuf
in 2002. Yusuf was killed in police custody in
2009.
The Daily Beast reported on Sunday that
officially, the U.S. intelligence community
believed that the sect had only tangential links to
al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, and that
reports of bin Laden backing the Nigerian outfit
were off-base, but many analysts have believed
that the ties between Boko Haram and al Qaeda
global leadership go much deeper—and are
about more than a little seed money.
“There were channels between bin laden and
Boko Haram leadership,” one senior U.S.
intelligence offical told The Daily Beast, adding
that “He gave some strategic direction at times.”
A comprehensive report on Boko Haram
published by the International Crisis Group, also
confirmed that Boko Haram’s early leader,
Mohammed Yusuf, received some seed money
from a disciple of Osama bin Laden named
Mohammed Ali in 2002.
The report added that bin Laden got to know Ali
in the 1990s when he was based in Sudan, adding
that after Ali travelled with bin Laden to
Afghanistan, he was provided with $3m in
Nigerian currency in 2002 and sent to the north
of the country to fund a wide array of Salafist
political organisations to help spread al-Qaeda’s
ideology.
Ali then became involved in the Nigeria’s
Muslim insurgency but was eventually killed.
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