Boko Haram, trained by al Qaeda, Somali insurgents —Niger

Champion

26 January 2012

Boko Haram, trained by al Qaeda, Somali insurgents —Niger

Members of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram received explosives training at al Qaeda camps in the Sahel region of northern Africa, Niger’s foreign minister said.

The group, which has killed more than 200 people this year in increasingly sophisticated attacks that include bombings, may have also received training from Somalia’s al Shabaab insurgents, Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum said.

"There is no doubt that there is confirmed information that shows a link between Boko Haram and AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), and it consists primarily of the training given to elements of Boko Haram," Bazoum said at a regional security summit in Mauritania’s capital.

"One group has been received in AQIM bases here in the Sahel and another group got training, based on information we’ve gotten, with the Shabaabs in Somalia," he said.

Security analysts have said Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria, is unlikely to expand its focus beyond Nigeria, and has only limited ties to other insurgent groups.

But Bazoum said the evidence of training links between al Qaeda’s North African wing and Boko Haram required a unified regional security approach to combat the threat.