Christian’s Are Being Slaughtered in Nigeria Continues

Raymond Ibrahim and Faith J. H. McDonnellare the few individuals who work tiredly for many years to write about the atrocities happening in Africa and the Islamic controlled countries. So many children, women and men are being persecuted for being Christian in the Islamic controlled countries. I applaud both Raymond Ibrahim and Faith J.H. McDonnell for tireless and often thankless job of sounding the alarm of the Islamic slaughtering of innocent, children, women and men, the only crime for them being hacked up with a machete, decapitated, and/or thrown into a bonfire while still alive. I applaud George Clooney for his speaking out about the situation as well, however Mr Clooney will not admit the true cause and true cause is Radical Hate Filled Islamist, torturing, raping, maiming and murdering any infidels (Jews, Christians, Hindu, and non-believers of the Qur’an). Until they can admit to the core of the problem nothing will be done. W

Source Link FrontPageMag

Christian Slaughter in Nigeria

By Faith J. H. McDonnell

Are they terrorists yet? Boko Haram, an Islamist sect seeking to impose Sharia throughout Nigeria, attacked three church services on Sunday, April 29, 2012. The latest slaughters added twenty-seven more dead to 900+ victims of the past two years’ efforts by Boko Haram to kill all the Christians in northern Nigeria. In recent months, the sect has also been marking the houses of Christians in the north, targeting them for killing, forcing thousands to flee from their homes.

On the morning of April 29, Boko Haram struck Catholic and Protestant worship services simultaneously at Bayero University in Kano. Twenty-two so farhave been confirmed dead, and twenty-three wounded. In the evening they attacked a church service in Jere, near Maiduguri, Borno State, killing another five people.

U.S. Congressmen Peter King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Patrick Meehan (R-PA) recently wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging that she designate the group as a terrorist organization. Meehan’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence released an extensive, bi-partisan report (a PDF copy of this report can be found below the article) on Boko Haram as an “emerging threat to the U.S. Homeland.” But the State Department continues to downplay Boko Haram’s Islamist nature, preferring to see the terrorist murderers – of whom even the Nigerian police are afraid – as victims of poverty and marginalization.

One survivor of the April 29 attack on the Catholic Mass was a geography professor, Emmanuel Olofin. Olofin reported that Mass had just gotten underway in the university indoor sports complex at 8:10 AM when the worshippers heard the sound of “gunshots and pellets falling on the roof of the building.” According to reports, the attackers arrived in a car and two motorcycles. They threw explosives into the building and sent people into a panic. They fled from the building, straight into the attackers’ line of fire.

Professor Olofin, age 71, leaped over an eight-foot fence instead of using the actual exit in the gate. “I believe that most of the people that died were those who took the pedestrian exit because it seemed as if the attackers used the pedestrian gate to gain entrance,” said Olofin, who found refuge under a tree. Among the dead were two of Olofin’s university colleagues, Professors Jerome Ayodele, Department of Chemistry, and Andrew Leo Ogbonyomi, Library Science.

At the same time the attack on the Catholics was taking place, other members of the sect attacked the Chapel of Victory Protestant church service, meeting outdoors near the Faculty of Medicine. Professor Julius Falola, who was preaching when the Islamists arrived, recounted a horrific scene similar to that described by Professor Olofin. Explosions and gunshots were followed by fleeing church members who provided easy targets for Boko Haram killers.Falola said that some of the Christians “jumped over the fence while others ran deeper into the campus.” Falola hid in the university clinic. Falola and Olofin, as well as other witnesses, said that the police did not arrive until 10 AM. “The shooting went on for 45 minutes,” said Falola.

Boko Haram topped off their killing spree later that night, by opening fire on the Church of Christ in Nigeria parish in Jere. Because of a state of emergency in the town, worshippers had foregone meeting in the morning in favor of what they assumed would be an unnoticed and therefore less dangerous evening worship. Halfway through the service, witnesses reported that the Islamists came “in their trademark car, Volkswagen Golf, dressed in flowing gowns.” After “their routine shout of ‘Allah akbar,’ they . . .  headed straight for the altar” where they shot and killed the pastor, Reverend Albert Naga. Four others died from the attack, as well.

In response to Sunday’s targeted killing of Christians by Boko Haram, Secretary Clinton put out a paragraph on May 1, saying that the United States “strongly condemns the recent attacks on innocent civilians in Nigeria, including yesterday’s disgraceful assault during church services at Bayero University in Kano.” Clinton said that they are “concerned about attacks on churches, news media, and government installations that increasingly target innocent civilians across Northern Nigeria.” She condemned “attempts by those in Nigeria who seek to inflame Christian-Muslim tensions, and support those who recognize Nigeria’s ethnic and religious diversity as one of the country’s greatest strengths.” She concluded by saying that “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of those who were killed and injured.”

While the statement does specifically mention churches, her condemnation of “those in Nigeria who seek to inflame Christian-Muslim tensions,” is vague enough to cause concern. First of all, it is obvious to almost everyone but the State Department why the “tension” is there to begin with: Islamic supremacism such as that of Boko Haram and other radical Muslims who want a pure Islamic state. In that case, any action, statement, or mere existence of non-Muslims can inflame the tension – a lunar eclipse, a Miss World pageant, the election of a Christian president, a speech by the Pope… and usually it is the Nigerian Christians (or the Christians anywhere in the Islamic world) who are blamed for “inflaming” things.

Other popular targets of Boko Haram have been newspaper offices and television viewing centers. On April 25, Boko Haram was responsible for bombing a television viewing center in Jos, Plateau State, where hundreds of Christians were watching a soccer match. One person was killed and four were injured when the radicals drove by the site and threw an explosive device at the viewers. On December 10, 2011, Boko Haram bombed three television viewing centers in Jos. At one site, 31 year-old Joshua Dabo was killed in the explosion. Ten people were injured, with four in critical condition and two in left in a coma, at the two other viewing centers. Apparently, watching soccer also inflames Christian-Muslim tensions.

The government of President Goodluck Jonathan has been asking the United States for help in dealing with Boko Haram and other terrorists, but so far the U.S. State Department has talked of providing financial aid to impoverished and marginalized youth, like Boko Haram. In his Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson said, “The Nigerian government must effectively engage communities vulnerable to extremist violence by addressing the underlying political and socio-economic problems in the North.” In what is absolute dismissal of the life-and-death struggles that Nigerian authorities have had with Boko Haram, he added, “The government must also promote respect for human rights by its security forces, whose heavy-handed tactics and extrajudicial killings reinforce the belief that Abuja is insensitive to the concerns of the North.” Then he added helpfully, “The appointment of credible northerners to lead the government response to northern grievances would be an important and tangible step toward reversing that perception.” Well, since the State Department appears to see Boko Haram as “credible northerners,” perhaps it will suggest their appointment. That would follow the pattern the Obama Administration has helped to set through Arab “Spring.”

On May 1, 2012, a Reuters news report indicated that the Nigerian government has not decided to follow the State Department’s advice. Forces raided the hideout of Boko Haram in Kano (the location the State Department is considering for a second U.S. Embassy), and after a gunfight that lasted several hours, killed “the mastermind” of the attack on the Christian worshippers the weekend before. According to Police Commissioner for Kano State Ibrahim Idris, AK-47 assault rifles, 467 munitions and 45 cans full of explosives were seized in the raid. And Kano army commander Brigadier General Ilyasu Abba, part of the Joint Task Force that conducted the raid, explained that although the terrorists of Boko Haram can identify the Nigerian security forces, the security forces cannot identify them. He said that two of the suspects had “escaped through the back door.”

While the Obama Administration continues to deny that Boko Haram are terrorists, more evidence has surfaced to prove their affiliation as such. An April 30, 2012 report from Nigerian newspaper, This Day Live, reveals that documents linking Boko Haram directly to Osama bin Laden were found in the dead terrorist’s house in Pakistan. The documents confirm what a top Boko Haram figure had declared openly to The Guardian in January. “A Boko Haram spokesman had boasted after the attacks on Police Headquarters in Abuja last year that the group had just trained a generation of suicide bombers in Somalia in what was seen then as a direct link to al-Shaabab, a Somali terrorist group aligned to al-Qaeda,” according to the report. They added that “Boko Haram is also believed to be working with Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), based in Algeria.”

All the evidence coming out about Boko Haram only confirms and clarifies what the terrorist group has said about itself. It is “fighting to reinstate a 19th century Islamic caliphate.” As such, it wants to remove the Christian presence from the north of Nigeria and ultimately, from the entire country. U.S. Representatives Peter King and Patrick Meehan have warned that Boko Haram is a tremendous threat not only to the Christians and other good citizens of Nigeria, but “its tactics, targeting, and fundraising operations appear to be increasingly international in scope, including within the U.S. Homeland.” This threat should be taken seriously.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Faith J. H. McDonnell directs the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan and is the author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children (Chosen Books, 2007).

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Death to Churches

Death to Churches

By Raymond Ibrahim

The following article was originally published by the Gatestone Institute.

Last Sunday, many Christians around the world celebrated Easter, taking it for granted that they can congregate and worship in peace.  Not so; in the Islamic world, where top religious officials call for the destruction of churches, Christian holidays celebrated in church are increasingly a time of death and destruction, a time of terror.

Nigeria, for example, saw some 50 Christians killed “when explosives concealed in two cars went off near a church during Easter Sunday services in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna…. the casualty figure may go up because some injuries were really critical.”  The church targeted was “the Assemblies of God’s Church near the centre of the city with a large Christian population and known as a major cultural and economic centre in Nigeria’s north.” According to the pastor holding Easter services at the time, “We were in the Holy Communion service and I was exhorting my people and all of a sudden, we heard a loud noise that shattered all our windows and doors, destroyed our fans and some of our equipment in the church.”

There is little doubt that the Islamist group Boko Haram is behind the terror strike.  The group has long been targeting churches—most notoriously, last December 25, when several churches were bombed in the Muslim majority areas of Nigeria, in what was described as “Nigeria’s blackest Christmas ever”: then, over 40 Christians were slain, “the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church [in Madalla near the capital of Abuja] after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.” As usual, the charred and dismembered remains of Christian worshippers were seen scattered in and around the destroyed church.

While the Christmas—and now Easter—church attacks may be Nigeria’s most known, they are certainly not the only ones. Consider just the last few weeks:

• • Sunday, March 11: A Boko Haram suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church, killing at least 10 people. The bomb detonated as worshippers attended Mass at St. Finbar’s Catholic Church in Jos, a city where thousands of Christians have died in the last decadeas a result of Boko Haram’s jihad.

• • Sunday, February 26: A Boko Haram suicide car bomber killed at least three people, including a toddler, at another church in Jos. Witnesses said the jihadist drove his car into the prominent Church of Christ during morning prayers.

• • Sunday, February 19: A Boko Haram bomb attack outside a church in Abuja left at least five people seriously injured and manymore hurt, when a parked car filled with explosives detonated outside the Christ Embassy Church.

While the mainstream media, analysts, government officials, etc. try to portray these attacks as products of Nigerian poverty—most recently, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs insisted that “religion is not driving extremist violence” in Nigeria—the fact is, wherever in the world there are significant numbers of Muslims (Nigeria is essentially half Christian, half Muslim), churches are under siege (see sections dealing with church attacks in my “Muslim Persecution of Christians” reports for February, January,December, November, October, September, August, and July).

Read the entire article at FrontPageMag

Qaeda group claims kidnap of German in Nigeria: report

Source Modern Ghana

A map locating the northern states in Nigeria. By (AFP/Graphic)

NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) – Al-Qaeda’s north Africa branch said Wednesday it was holding a German engineer kidnapped in Nigeria two months ago, and that it wanted to swap him for a jailed Muslim woman, a private news agency in Mauritania said.

“We inform you that your compatriot Edgar Fritz Raupach is a prisoner of fighters from AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb),” the group said in a statement published by the ANI agency, demanding the release of a woman who it said had converted to Islam.

The woman, Felis Lowitz, whose Muslim name was given as Um Seiv Al-Islam-Al-Ansariya, was said to be detained in Germany where she was being “tortured”.

A video obtained by ANI and seen by AFP showed Raupach, his hands tied behind his back, surrounded by masked gunmen.

In the video he called on his “parents, friends and German public opinion” to convince Berlin to “bring an end to the torture of our Muslim sister”, adding that only her liberation will save his life.

AQIM warned that any attempt to rescue Raupach will lead to his death, as happened in the case of Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara and British colleague Chris McManus, killed earlier this month during a failed rescue bid by Nigerian forces.

Raupach, ANI said, is an engineer who was kidnapped in northern Nigeria on January 25.

Germany has confirmed one of its nationals has been kidnapped in northern Nigeria, and the German construction company Bilfinger Berger has said he is one of their employees.

Terror group says no to talks

Source Article Link:UPI.com

LAGOS, Nigeria, March 21 (UPI) — A spokesman for the terrorist group Boko Haram said Wednesday the door for negotiations with the government of Nigeria is no longer open.

The spokesman who goes by the name of Abul Qaqa told the Daily Trust Boko Haram “would never listen to any call to lay down our arms.”

“We would never respect any proposal for dialogue,” Qaqa said. “In fact, we have closed all possible doors of negotiation.”

He said Boko Haram would continue its campaign until it achieves its goal of establishing an Islamic government in Nigeria.

In the latest attack two civilians were killed and a third person was injured at the Freedom Radio junction in the northern city of Kano, the Nigerian Tribune reported.

The three were playing cards when suspected Boko Haram members riding motorcycles began shooting sporadically.

By the time police arrived the attackers had fled.

Lands Drenched in Innocent Blood: Boko Haram Declares War Against Christians

By Deacon Keith Fournier
March 12th, 2012
Source Article Link: Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Boko Haram announced they are planning  a “war on Christians” in the “next few weeks”. The spokesman said the group “will launch a number of attacks, coordinated and part of the plan to eradicate Christians from certain parts of the country. We will create so much effort to end the Christian presence in our push to have a proper Islamic state that the Christians won’t be able to stay.”

ABUA,Nigeria (Catholic Online) – On Wednesday, March 7, 2012, six armed men killed a customs official, a five year old boy and at least two others. They did so intentionally and in cold blood. They did so in the name of Allah.

They set fire to a police station, a government building and two churches, one Catholic and one belonging to the Christian Brethren. They blew up vehicles, motorcycles and terrorized a town for three hours – all, once again, in the name of Allah.

This Islamist group has been terrorizing northern Nigeria for two years. They claimed responsibility for their evil and horrific behavior without any remorse or regret. On Thursday, March 8, 2012, they also killed a British and an Italian hostage. None of the reports indicated how the murders occurred but, the track record of similar Jihadis points to beheadings. We have only to remember Danny Pearl. In fact, we MUST remember Danny Pearl!

The President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, properly condemned the murders. The two victims were innocent engineers who had been taken by these evil Islamists in May of 2011. Efforts to negotiate for their release were unsuccessful. So too were efforts to rescue them. Their families are in mourning and we should pray for them.

We reported on the horrible bombing outside of St Theresa’s Catholic Church on Christmas Day. That evil act, perpetrated by these Islamic terrorists who proudly refer to themselves as the “Nigerian Taliban,” was followed by an ultimatum issued to Christians in Northern Nigeria to leave in three days or face further violence.

A spokesman for “Boko Haram” told reporters “our Muslim brothers are advised to return to the north, because we have evidence that they will be attacked. We also issue a three-day ultimatum to the southerners living in the north of Nigeria, to leave. We have serious indications to suggest that the soldiers only kill the innocent Muslims in areas where government has declared a state of emergency. We will face them decisively to protect our brothers.”

That was nonsense. There have been no attacks on Muslims in Nigeria. In fact, some Muslims who properly reject the violence of this evil group have been victim of their terror. The phrase “Boko Haram” means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language. These Islamist terrorists hate all things “western” and Christian. They are Jihadiss who have expressed their intention to forcibly establish an Islamic Caliphate and impose Shariah Law on everyone.

They are also called  al-Sunnah wal Jamma – or “Followers of the Prophet’s Teachings”. They refer to themselves officially as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which means “people committed to the propagation of the prophet’s teachings and Jihad”. They are murderers and terrorists who use an appeal to religion to attempt to justify evil.

After the Christmas bombings, a spokesman claimed responsibility in an interview with a local newspaper called The Daily Trust saying “There will never be peace, until our demands are met. We want all our brothers who have been incarcerated to be released; we want full implementation of the Sharia system and we want democracy and the constitution to be suspended.”

The terrorist group issued a three-day ultimatum for Christians to leave the North of Nigeria and has called for all Muslims living in the South to move North. They have signaled their intention to fight government troops and to expand their violent attacks against Christians and others who resist their Jihad.

After the Christmas bombing Vatican Radio reported that Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, the Vice President of the Nigerian Bishop’s Conference, urged Nigerians to not to allow their country to be overtaken by terror: “Churches have been destroyed and lives were lost and there is no sign that this might end, until the government intervenes decisively.”

“We continue to ask Christians to be vigilant and aware of the issue of safety when they go to church and even in their own homes. We have appealed that there be no retaliation and we continue to preach peace, hoping that all of us in Nigeria, Muslims and Christians, we will be able to work and live happily together. This is our position: no violence, no retaliation. We want to live in peace”.

Sadly, these evil Jihadists have no such desire.

Archbishop Kaigama added, “We continue to appeal to reason, for dialogue. It is possible for Muslims and Christians to reason together. We know that there are other forces behind the so-called Boko Haram. We do not even know who the Boko Haram really are, what they want, where they get their arms from. What is certain is that there are some forces behind them, either in Nigeria or abroad, who want to profit from instability in our country, but we will not give in to terrorism, we will not allow these fundamentalists to ruin our country”.

On the day after Christmas, the Feast of St Stephen the Deacon and Proto – Martyr, a visibly burdened Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the faithful gathered for the Angelus prayer. He spoke from his heart, urging prayers for those whose, “lands are drenched in innocent blood.”

The Pope reminded the faithful that St Stephen gave his life for his Christian faith. He spoke of his heroic witness, noting that even as he was being stoned to death he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” and begged forgiveness for his accusers. He extolled the witness of the early martyrs of the Church, a topic which he has frequently addressed in the last few years.

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office said in a statement, “Regretfully the attacks at the Church of Saint Theresa in Abuja, timed to coincide with Christmas Day celebrations, are once again the expression of the cruelty of blind and absurd hatred devoid of any respect for human life and represent an attempt to generate and fuel further hatred and confusion.”

“We express our closeness to the suffering of the Church and of all the Nigerian people who have been affected by violent terrorism even during these days that should be of joy and peace,” he added. “While we pray for the victims, we also express the hope that this senseless violence will not weaken the will for peaceful cohabitation and dialogue in the nation.”

The word “Martyr” derives from a Greek word which means “witness.” The Catholic faith proclaims that the shedding of one’s blood in fidelity to Jesus Christ is the final witness to the Faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that:

“Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude” (CCC #2471 – 2473)

What is happening to our brethren in Nigeria – Christian martyrdom at the hands of militant Jihadist Islamists – must not be overlooked. The threat of such violent, evil, Jihadism is not decreasing. If anything, it is increasing. For someone who remembers the cold war, even to the point of drills where we hid under our desks, it calls to mind the great need for a National resolve.  It makes the threat of militant Marxism look mild in comparison.

The victims of this evil are often being killed precisely because they are Christians. The blood of the martyrs seems to be flowing more frequently these days as militant Islamic terrorism increases and establishes a new beachhead in Africa. For Catholics and other Christians, we cannot – we must not- fail to act. Africa is one of the great centers of the renewal of the Church in the Third Millennium. We are living in a new missionary age.

The words attributed to Tertullian in the Second Century of the Church still hold out their promise: “The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  We are living in a new missionary age. Pray for our brethren in Africa. Also, understand the implications of the evil designs of these Jihadists. They hate us. If you want to read a source which “pulls no punches” in their reporting on this growing threat, read Jihad Watch.(http://www.jihadwatch.org/)

A spokesman for Boko Haram announced on Thursday they are planning  a “war on Christians”. They told a local reporter  it would occur in the “next few weeks.”  The spokesman said the group “will launch a number of attacks, coordinated and part of the plan to eradicate Christians from certain parts of the country. We will create so much effort to end the Christian presence in our push to have a proper Islamic state that the Christians won’t be able to stay.”

Nigeria’s Ghost Town

African Jihadists’ Grand Ambitions

Source Link: Family Security Matters

By Clare M. Lopez

Boko Haram Wants to Put Nigeria Under Islamic Law

The armies of Islam arrived in the Nigerian kingdoms as early as the 9th century. The forcible conquest of North Africa—including present day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco—imposed Islamic law (shariah) according to the Maliki school of Sunni jurisprudence over this vast swath of territory. Over subsequent centuries, relentless jihadist raids (razzias) as well as the penetration of Muslim merchants, scholars, and traders into areas of the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa eventually succeeded in subjugating Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and the entire northern half of the modern country of Nigeria to Islam.

Today, Nigeria is a large and populous West African country of some 160 million people, about half of whom are Muslim and half Christian and animist. Nigeria is comprised of 36 states, 12 of which have implemented shariah in the northern half of the country. As the renowned political scientist, Samuel Huntington wrote, “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards.” Islam in Nigeria, as in every other place on earth where it establishes power, has shown itself aggressive and violent. Shariah commands Muslims to jihad to spread the faith and, especially throughout the second half of the 20th century, Nigeria’s Muslims have obeyed: wars of domination against non-shariah-adherent Muslims like the Hausa exploded into jihad against non-Muslim tribes like the Yoruba and the Ibo (Biafra) leaving as many as a million dead. Shariah Implementation Committees drew up detailed plans to establish Shariah Courts, train and hire shariah judges, create a Religious Affairs Ministry, set up a Zakat Board, codify the Islamic penal code (hudud punishments like amputation, lashing, and stoning), and make the educational curriculum shariah-compliant.

In 2002, a fanatic jihadist group calling itself “Boko Haram” emerged from among the vast network of Nigeria’s savage Islamic militias, determined to conquer all of Nigeria, seize its oil wealth (largely concentrated in the south), and impose shariah on the entire population, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. “Boko Haram” means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language and expresses the group’s visceral hatred of all things modern, Western, and non-Muslim. Boko Haram leaders have expressed solidarity with al-Qa’eda, explicitly rejected the Nigerian constitution and democracy, and demanded nation-wide implementation of Islamic law.

Since its inception, Boko Haram, which is loosely modeled on Afghanistan’s Taliban, has unleashed a wave of vicious attacks against Nigeria’s central states that border the Muslim north and Christian south. Abuja, the country’s capital, is a planned city that was built mostly during the 1980s, became the official capital in 1991, and was deliberately positioned almost exactly in the middle of Nigeria. Unfortunately, this location puts Abuja squarely on the Nigerian fault line between the jihadist north and Christian south, sometimes called the “Middle Belt.”

A steady stream of murderous Islamic attacks against Christian churches, towns, and villages across northern and central Nigeria exploded into large-scale terrorist assaults in early November 2011 that killed more than 100 people. A car bomb that killed a number of security personnel outside a military barracks in the northeast state of Yobe was followed by a night of rampaging gunmen who blew up a bank, and attacked multiple police stations and churches, leaving behind a trail of destruction. That wave of deadly attacks was followed by U.S. Embassy warnings that Boko Haram planned to bomb three luxury hotels in Abuja over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which fell on November 8th this year. An August 2011 suicide car bomb attack against the UN Headquarters in Abuja that killed 24, including 12 UN staff, left no doubts about Boko Haram’s willingness to attack targets identified with the West.

Media reports that describe the violence and refer to Boko Haram as “Islamists” or a “radical Islamic sect” miss the point: just like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the mullahs’ regime in Iran, al-Shabaab in Somalia, or the al-Qa’eda rebels that have seized control of Libya, Boko Haram is following in the footsteps of Muhammad, obeying the command of Islamic law to wage war against infidels “…until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.” (Q 8:39) According to shariah, there is nothing particularly radical about this command, which is the same command given to every generation of Muslims since the time of the earliest Muslim warriors.

Mistaking Boko Haram’s jihad for mere disgruntlement over poverty or wealth disparity plays into its hands, enabling this sophisticated Islamic terror organization, with possible ties to al-Qa’eda, to claim its war of conquest against non-Muslim Nigerians is nothing more than a righteous effort to end corruption.

Jihad is about waging war in the name of Islam in order to spread the religion. Nigeria, with its vast oil wealth, is a coveted prize and would make a formidable base from which the armies of Islam might link eventually with al-Qa’eda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to threaten all of West Africa.

Family Security Matters Contributor Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments. Now a private consultant, Lopez is a Sr. Fellow at the Center for Security Policy and Vice President of the Intelligence Summit. She is also a senior fellow at the Clarion Fund.

Christian Mother of Five in Nigeria Killed

Source Article Link: Compass Direct

Soldiers containing inter-religious youth fighting shoot her in her home.

BAUCHI, Nigeria, October 24 (CDN) — Nigerian soldiers summoned to stop inter-religious fighting between Muslim and Christian youths last week shot and killed a Christian mother of five in the Yelwa area of Bauchi city, according to family and church sources.

Soldiers were called in to restore calm following fighting that broke out at a high school soccer match on Thursday (Oct. 20), and later three Muslim soldiers shot and killed Charity Augustine Agbo and a Christian boy. The circumstances leading to the shooting of the boy, who is unrelated to Agbo, were not immediately known, and his name was not disclosed.

“There was not any justifiable reason for the soldiers to have shot the woman,” said the Rev. Lawi Pokti, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Bauchi State.

Pokti confirmed the shooting of the boy, who was initially reported as having been killed, and said he had been resuscitated in a hospital.

Augustine Agbo, husband of the murdered woman, told reporters that three soldiers shot his wife after storming their house on Lagos Street in the Yelwa area of the city.

“Three soldiers arrived in a Hilux vehicle with siren blaring, scaring us and forcing us to run into our houses,” he reportedly said. “When we all ran inside, we saw these three soldiers coming to our house; then we locked the outside gate, but the soldiers followed us and broke the glass door and forced the door open and shot my wife twice on the chest.”

Agbo reported the shooting to the Army commander in Bauchi, and his soldiers later came to his house to take his wife to an area clinic owned by the Church of Christ in Nigeria, he reportedly said.

“After they left, the situation became worse, forcing us to take her to the ATBU Teaching Hospital, where she later died,” he told reporters.

The inter-religious violence erupted during a soccer game at the Baba Tanko Secondary School in Kagadama, a part of the Yelwa area, and then spread to other parts of Bauchi city. Other Muslims reportedly joined Muslim students from the school, attacked Christians and set their homes ablaze.

The Baba Tanko Secondary School is known as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, with Christian sources saying that most religious conflicts in Bauchi have been triggered by Muslim students at the school. In 2007, Muslim students along with other Muslims attacked Christians, killing dozens of them and destroying Christian-owned homes.

Mohammed Majeed Ali, assistant commissioner of police with the Bauchi State Police Command, confirmed the outbreak of the religious violence; he told Compass that the crisis has been contained.

For more than a decade, Christians in Bauchi state have been under pressure from Muslim extremists who have destroyed Christian worship places and killed Christians, said Pokti of CAN. Earlier this year, the Rev. Ishaku Kadah and his wife were abducted and killed, as was pastor Irimiya Maigida.

“I want to make it categorically clear that enough is enough, because despite the fact that the Christian community has constantly remained peaceful, it has become a target for these extremist Muslims even when there is peace,” he said.

Pokti faulted the government for being slow to prosecute Muslim extremists.

“Because of lack of pro-active measures by the government to ensure peace in Christian areas in the state, Christians are being killed by Muslim extremists, and none of them has been brought to book,” he said. “The lukewarm attitude of the Nigerian government to problems of persecution facing Christians has made it easy for Muslim extremists to attack Christians and get away with such crimes.”

Nigeria: Homemade Bombs Found In Car

Source Stratfor

Nigerian police discovered two homemade bombs in a car carrying three suspected members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram to a political rally March 29, Zakai Adamu, the state assistant police commissioner for Borno state said, AFP reported. When the two locally-made bombs were discovered by police in the boot of the car, the three suspects ran and police opened fire. One suspect was killed, another was wounded, and the third was able to escape, Adamu said. It is believed the suspects were going to detonate the bombs at the campaign rally.

Nigeria: Bomb Plot Thwarted

Nigerian police in the northeastern city of Maiduguri stopped a plot to bomb an opposition party election rally March 29, while gunmen killed five people in separate incidents, Reuters reported. The attacks have been blamed on Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram. According to police, security forces were tipped off about a threat to the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) election rally and were able to arrest some men with explosives meant to disrupt the rally. Three separate shootings, resulting in five dead, occurred as ANPP supporters headed toward a central square for the rally.

Nigeria: Bomb Explosions – Jonathan Appoints Adviser On Terrorism

President Goodluck Jonathan will appoint an Adviser on Terrorism within the next one week while public and private establishments are to be ringed with close circuit television (CCTV) in response to the spate of explosions that have rocked parts of the country.

Other decisions reached at the emergency security meeting Monday are that Jonathan would work with the National Assembly to ensure the speedy passage of the anti-terrorism bill and that the police should embark on an inspection of all armouries licensed by it and to regulate how materials are imported and used in Nigeria.

Committees to be set up by the Federal Government include the Presidential Committee on the control of explosives and other incendiary materials as well as one for enlightenment on general security awareness among citizens.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ima Niboro, who addressed the State House correspondents, said the National Security Adviser to the President, General Owoye Azazi, the Chief of Defence Staff, Air ChiefMarshall Oluseyi Petirin, Director General of SSS, Ekpenyong Etta, and Director General of National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ambassador E. Oladeji.

Others are the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Azubuike ihejirika; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibrahim, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Umar Dikko

and the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim. The Chief of Staff to the President Mr. Mike Oghadiome was also in attendance.

“Mr. President in the next one week is to appoint a Special Adviser on Terrorism,” he said. “Mr President is to work with the National Assembly to ensure the

speedy passage of the Anti-Terrorism Bill while certain Committees are to be set up.

“The Committees are a Presidential Committee on the control of explosive and other incendiary materials and a committee on public enlightenment on general

security awareness amongst citizens. Government is to introduce Close Circuit televisions (CCTVs) in public place for access control, Niboro said.

Other measures are the introduction of regulations for access control for private and public establishments while the Police have been directed to promptly arrest and prosecute political thugs as the build up to the general elections gather steam.

The meeting was sequel to the series of bomb blasts in some parts of the country which has struck fear into people and a measure to review the security situations and take far-reaching steps towards securing lives and properties in the country.

Source: allAfrica.com

Nigeria among worst violators of freedom

Watch this video and see for your own eyes the atrocities happening in Nigeria, I have to caution you the video’s are very graphic in detail, but in order to understand more fully of what is happening, seeing is believing.

Source: Washington Times

Julia Duin

Nigeria has risen to the top tier of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom, according to an annual report to be released Thursday by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The independent bipartisan governmental agency, whose report details abuse in 28 nations, singled out Nigeria for not punishing religiously motivated violence, such as what took place in January when 500 Christians near the city of Jos were hacked to death by Muslims.

Calling Nigeria “a tragic case,” the USCIRF said its investigators visited Africa’s largest country three times over the past year to find out why more than 12,000 Nigerians – Christians and Muslims alike – have died in sectarian violence since 1999.

“Not a single criminal, Muslim or Christian, has been convicted and sentenced in Nigeria’s 10 years of religious violence,” the report says. “The Nigerian government and judicial system have so far been unwilling or unable to protect either side.”

A spokeswoman for the Nigerian Embassy could not be reached for comment.

Other nations named by the commission – which makes policy recommendations to the State Department, Congress and the president – as among the worst violators are China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, North Korea, Eritrea, Iraq and Uzbekistan.

The following are “watch list” countries, which have only slightly better records: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikstan, Turkey and Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia, the report says, continues to circulate “educational materials that instill hate and incite violence throughout the world”; the Iranian government denies all rights to its Baha’i minority; the Egyptian government mistreats Baha’is and Coptic Christians; China restricts all manner of religious activities; and North Korea imprisons even the grandchildren of those caught praying.

There are an estimated 40,000 religious prisoners in North Korea, including 6,000 Christians in the infamous Prison 15 in the country’s north. Those prisoners are treated worse than other inmates, the report says, and those who are pregnant are sometimes forced to abort their children or their newborns are killed in the camps.

Those lucky enough to escape into China are often forced back over the border by the Chinese government despite international obligations to help asylum seekers, the religious-freedom panel says. Once back in North Korea, the prisoners suffer even worse tortures.

Since Iran’s disputed June 12 election, the report says, religious freedom conditions have sunk to a 30-year low, with the country’s Shi’ite rulers imprisoning other Shi’ites as well as Sunni and Sufi Muslims. Of the non-Muslim groups, the nation’s 300,000 Baha’is are treated the worst, the report says, with seven of their top leaders in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for the past two years.

Christians, the report adds, also are subject to heavy doses of imprisonment, arrests while attending church services, harassment and the seizure of their belongings to the point that many have fled the country. The year 2009 also saw increases in officially sanctioned anti-Semitic propaganda, with one newspaper sponsoring a Holocaust-denial editorial cartoon contest.

Next door in Iraq, religious minorities such as the Mandaeans – who follow the teachings of John the Baptist – see no future for themselves in the country, and 90 percent of them are said to have been killed or to have fled Iraq.

The numbers of Christians are down by two-thirds from 1.4 million adherents in 2003, the report says, and in February, 10 Christians were killed in Mosul, prompting 4,300 other Christians to flee the city. No perpetrators have been arrested; a chronic problem facing religious minorities in Iraq.