Bounty and Blindness

By Faith J. H. McDonnell

On June 3, 2013, the U.S. Department of State made the surprising and welcome announcement that its “Rewards for Justice” program isoffering a bounty on information leading to the capture of key leaders of terrorist organizations in West Africa. The top reward, up to $7 million, is for Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram. Boko Haram is the brutal Jihadist group working to eradicate the Christian presence in northern Nigeria and impose Sharia law on the whole nation.

It is commendable (did I mention surprising?) that the State Department is taking this step to capture Shekau and other Islamist terrorists. Bounty for Yahya Abu el Hammam, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leader, and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Signed-in-Blood Battalion leader, is up to $5 million each. Information leading to the location of Malik Abou Abdelkarim, another AQIM leader, and Oumar Ould Hamaha, spokesperson for the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) will net an informer up to $3 million for each. The State Department has prioritized the capture of Boko Haram leader Shekau. But why not target the entire organization?

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence have deep concerns about Boko Haram. They have urged State to designate it a Foreign Terrorist Organization (F.T.O.) so that it can be more closely monitored, and the U.S. can be more helpful to the Nigerian government in trying to dismantle this Islamist menace. But the State Department does not see Boko Haram the same way.

The State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism’sannual report stated that “The militant sect ‘People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad,’ better known by its Hausa name Boko Haram (BH), conducted killings, bombings, kidnappings, and other attacks in Nigeria, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries, and the widespread destruction of property in 2012.” Noting that “attackers killed Nigerian government and security officials, Muslim and Christian clerics, journalists, and civilians,” the terrorism report calls “on the Nigerian government to employ a comprehensive security strategy that is not predicated on the use of force.” Nigeria should also address “the economic and political exclusion of vulnerable communities in the north,” chides the report.

Even while reporting on terrorism by the “people committed to the propagation of the prophet’s teaching and jihad,” the State Department appears blind to why Boko Haram does what it does. “This is a Jihad not inspired by pecuniary or unequal motives but one that is driven by fanatical and dogmatic religious ideology of doing away with Christianity in Nigeria,” says Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The Counterterrorism Office is correct that Nigeria should address the vulnerable communities in the north that have suffered from economic and political marginalization, but that is not Boko Haram! It is the Christians in northern Nigeria who are most neglected and poverty-stricken – all the more so now, as family breadwinners have been slaughtered, hospital bills must be paid, and homes, churches, and businesses have been burned to the ground by Boko Haram….

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Obama Pushes Funds for Islamists —- Trashes Their Christian Victims

By Faith J. H. McDonnell

The “Islamist apologist choir” described in Cinnamon Stillwell’s recent story “Profs on Boston Bombing” doesn’t sing solely on behalf of Chechnya and Cambridge. Some of that choir’s most dreadful caterwauling today is in support of Nigeria’s yet-undesignated terrorists, Boko Haram. The choir stalls are located in the U.S. State Department, which not only refuses to designate the jihadists as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), but maligns and defames Boko Haram’s Christian victims, as well.

Boko Haram’s latest attack, killing at least 42, took place on Tuesday, May 7, in the already battle-worn town of Bama, in Nigeria’s northeast Borno State. Borno, one of 12 states under Sharia, has suffered heavy losses under the Islamists. Some believe that Boko Haram has taken over northern Borno State much as Islamists took over northern Mali. At least 277 had been killed by Boko Haram in Borno State in 2013 before this attack.  According to an AP story the Tuesday event involved “coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns” in multiple locations around Bama. The jihadists also raided a federal prison, freeing 105 inmates.

Military spokesman Lt. Colonel Sagir Musa told AP that “some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria’s beleaguered army.” Musa, who said two soldiers and 10 insurgents died in the attack, revealed that the attackers “came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers.” The Islamists killed 14 prison guards. They also attacked and razed a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate’s court, and local government offices, according to Lt. Col. Musa. Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar reported that at least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in the attacks.

Boko Haram frequently attacks Nigeria’s police and military forces. In 2012 as documented by the Facts on Nigeria Violence website, there were at least 67 attacks, almost exclusively by Boko Haram, against military barracks, police stations, prisons, and other government facilities, as well as against individual soldiers, policemen, and civil servants. But Boko Haram’s main targets are northern Nigeria’s Christians and churches.

The official name of Boko Haram, Jamā’a Ahl al-sunnah li-da’wa wa al-jihād, can be translated “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” Its goal is to establish a pure Islamic state in northern Nigeria, removing the Christian presence – either by conversion, expulsion, or extermination. Boko Haram appears to prefer the third option. According to the World Watch Monitor (WWM) report on global Christian persecution, Nigeria had a higher death toll from anti-Christian persecution and violence than the rest of the world combined. WWM concluded that Nigeria is “the most violent place on earth for Christians.”

In a recent Front Page Magazine article, Daniel Greenfield exposed the unfortunate moral equivalence found in the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) 2013 report on Nigeria. While much of the report is very good and condemns Boko Haram, impunity, and the forced imposition of Sharia, USCIRF appears to have developed the same pathological impulse that afflicts the rest of the federal government, to never blame Islam. As a result, portions of the report mischaracterize certain acts of violence by both Boko Haram and other Islamists targeting Christians, and criticize northern Nigerian Christian leaders for calling the situation what it is: persecution.

USCIRF’s egregious observations and recommendations are actually State Department policy. For instance, USCIRF parrots former Asst. Sec. of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, who declared in a congressional hearing, “It is important to note that religion is not the primary driver behind extremist violence in Nigeria” and that “the Nigerian government must effectively engage communities vulnerable to extremist violence by addressing the underlying political and socio-economic problems in the North.” USCIRF reports that “The U.S. government consistently has urged the Nigerian government to expand its strategy against Boko Haram from solely a military solution to addressing problems of economic and political marginalization in the north,” says USCIRF, “arguing that Boko Haram’s motivations are not religious but socio-economic.”….

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Nigeria: Muslims separate Christian students from Muslim students, murder 25-30 Christians

By Robert Spencer

Clearly these jihadis were enraged over “Islamophobia.” If we criminalize criticism of Islam, all will be well.

Here is more on the jihad massacre in Nigeria posted here yesterday. “Christian Students Executed by Boko Haram in Nigeria; Believers Pray for ‘Change of Heart,’” by Katherine Weber for the Christian Post, October 3 (thanks to Jay):

Multiple sources have confirmed that about 25 to 30 Christian college students were massacred at a university in northeastern Nigeria late Monday night, causing Christians to pray for a “change of heart” among the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram to put a stop to the continued violence.While there is speculation as to the motive of the massacre, sources close to the human rights watchdog Open Doors USA confirm that the massacre was performed by Boko Haram….

The killings reportedly occurred in the late night hours on Oct. 1, when masked gunmen went door-to-door in the off-campus housing section of Federal Polytechnic College in Mubi, a city in the remote Adamawa State in northeastern Nigeria.

Open Doors USA sources confirmed that the gunmen separated the Christian students from the Muslim students, addressed each victim by name, questioned them, and then proceeded to shoot them or slit their throat….

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“From now on, they either follow the right religion or there will be no peace for them”: Muslim group claims responsibility for Nigeria church bombings that killed 50

Religion of Peace and Tolerance

By Robert Spencer

As Muhammad said, “I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah.” — Sahih Muslim 30

“Boko Haram claims responsibility for Nigeria church bombings,” from CNN, June 18 (thanks to Wimpy):

Abuja, Nigeria (CNN) — A militant Islamist group claimed responsibility Monday for bombings the day before that the Nigerian Red Cross said left 50 people dead at three Christian churches in Nigeria.Boko Haram said the attacks Sunday in the Nigerian cities of Zaria and Kaduna were retaliation on Christians for destroying mosques and, according to the group, turning others into “beer parlour and prostitution joints.”

“Let them know that now it’s the time for revenge God willing,” the group said in a statement. “From now on, they either follow the right religion or there will be no peace for them.”

Government and Red Cross figures on the death toll in Sunday’s attacks differed. However, the bombings at two churches and a third in Kaduna left at least 50 people dead and 131 wounded according to the Red Cross.

Kaduna state officials loosened a 24-hour curfew imposed after the attacks, saying people could be on the streets from 2 to 6 p.m. However, resident Anthony Majindadi said most people were staying indoors and his area still looked like a ghost town….

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Nigeria: Muslims attack two churches, murdering three and wounding dozens

By Robert Spencer

The Islamic supremacist group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility. Will the Islamophobia never end?

“Two churches in Nigeria attacked by gunmen and suicide bomber,” by Ahmed Saka for the Associated Press, June 10 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives Sunday outside a church in central Nigeria as gunmen attacked another church in the nation’s northeast, killing at least three people and wounding dozens of others in the latest religious violence in a country under increasing assault by a radical Islamist sect, witnesses said.In Jos, a city on the uneasy dividing line between Nigeria’s largely Muslim north and Christian south, the suicide car bomber drove into the compound of the Evangelical Church Winning All chapel in the city, said Mark Lipdo, who runs a Christian advocacy group called the Stefanos Foundation. The explosion killed two worshippers and the suicide bomber, while wounding more than 40 others, a senior police officer at the scene told The Associated Press. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as the information was not to be immediately released to journalists.

The officer warned others likely could die as they suffered grave injuries….

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