Boko Haram heading for the UN blacklist

21 May 2014 - 02:00 By Reuters, AFP
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A picture taken from a video distributed to Nigerian journalists in the country's north in recent days through intermediaries and obtained by AFP on March 5, 2013 shows Abubakar Shekau (C), the leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, flanked by two armed and hooded fighters in an undisclosed place.
A picture taken from a video distributed to Nigerian journalists in the country's north in recent days through intermediaries and obtained by AFP on March 5, 2013 shows Abubakar Shekau (C), the leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, flanked by two armed and hooded fighters in an undisclosed place.
Image: HO / BOKO HARAM / AFP

Nigeria has asked the UN Security Council's al-Qaeda sanctions committee to blacklist Islamist militant group Boko Haram after the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls.

If there is no objection within the 15-member committee, which operates by consensus, Boko Haram will be sanctioned tomorrow, diplomats said.

Until recently, Nigeria has been reluctant to seek international assistance in combating Boko Haram.

The document submitted by Nigeria to support its blacklisting request refers to the bombing of the UN in August of 2011 that killed 24 people.

It also describes a "campaign of violence against Nigerian schools and students" by the group and mentions other attacks on schools last year.

Boko Haram, which Western governments and Abuja say is linked to al-Qaeda, kidnapped more than 250 girls from a secondary school in Chibok in remote northeastern Nigeria on April 14 and has threatened to sell them into slavery. Eight other girls were taken from another village earlier this month.

Boko Haram's five-year-old insurgency is aimed at reviving a medieval Islamic caliphate in modern Nigeria, whose 170 million people are split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims.

The group has become the biggest of several security threats to the modern state in Africa's top oil producer.

  • Nigeria's parliament yesterday approved a six-month extension to a state of emergency in three northeastern states hit by Islamist militant violence.
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