Exclusive: Spokesman for Islamist group says it will not stop deadly
attacks until country is ruled according to dictates of Allah
Monica Mark in Abuja
Saturday January 28 2012
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/27/boko-haram-nigeria-sharia-law
The Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed almost 1,000 people in
Nigeria [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/24/boko-haram-killed-
nearly-1000" title="], will continue its campaign of violence until
the country is ruled by sharia law, a senior member has told the
Guardian.
"We will consider negotiation only when we have brought the government
to their knees," the spokesman, Abu Qaqa, said in the group's first
major interview with a western newspaper. "Once we see that things are
being done according to the dictates of Allah, and our members are
released [from prison], we will only put aside our arms ? but we will
not lay them down. You don't put down your arms in Islam, you only put
them aside."
Qaqa, whose name is a pseudonym, said the group's members were
spiritual followers of al-Qaida, and claimed they had met senior
figures in the network founded by Osama bin Laden during visits to
Saudia Arabia.
The interview comes a week after Boko Haram claimed responsibility for
Nigeria's single deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 186 people
in the northern city of Kano [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/
23/nigerians-pray-suicide-bombers-victims" title="].
In an audio message posted on YouTube on Friday, the group's current
leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to bomb schools [http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUd0Vcs8Tm4" title="] and kidnap family
members of government officials.
"If [security forces] are going to places of worship and destroying
them, like mosques and Quranic schools, you have primary schools as
well, you have secondary schools and universities, and we will start
bombing them."
Shekau rejected calls for a negotiated peace from President Goodluck
Jonathan, who on Thursday called for the shadowy sect to step out of
the shadows and engage in dialogue [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
video/2012/jan/27/boko-haram-nigeria-president-video" title="].
Nigerian officials have voiced hopes for a negotiated settlement with
"moderate elements" of the group [http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424052970203363504577185110924563608.html" title="">hopes for a
negotiated settlement with "moderate elements]. "Under the
circumstances, if you look hard enough, you can find moderate elements
you can communicate with," General Andrew Azazi, the national security
adviser to the president, told the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
Western diplomats say Boko Haram has splintered and the hardliners
leading the factions responsible for the wave of violence that has
killed some 250 people this year appear to have rejected any
suggestion of dialogue.
The Guardian was able to contact Abu Qaqa through an intermediary from
the group's home state. The go-between has been in contact with the
group since its inception, and met with its founder, Mohammed Yusuf,
several times before he was killed in 2009. For most of the interview
he used a voice modulator, but local journalists confirmed that his
undisguised voice matched recordings of previous interviews.
Qaqa said Shekau and others had travelled to Saudi Arabia for training
and funding. "Al-Qaida are our elder brothers. During the lesser Hajj
[last August], our leader travelled to Saudi Arabia and met al-Qaida
there. We enjoy financial and technical support from them. Anything we
want from them we ask them."
He said recruits from neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger had joined
the group. A recent UN report said weapons from Libya may have been
smuggled to Boko Haram and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb via Chad,
Niger and Nigeria [http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/
sc10533.doc.htm" title="].
Security officials and diplomats in Abuja said they had no evidence of
a link with al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, but an official confirmed that
"elements of Boko Haram have made contact with external groups". The
extent and frequency of that contact was unknown, the official said.
In the decade since it first appeared, Boko Haram has graduated from
crude driveby attacks on beer parlours to bombing security buildings
in the northern Muslim heartland. Its most audacious attack targeted
the United Nations building in the capital, Abuja, killing 25 [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/26/nigeria-attack-islamists-claim-responsibility"
title="] in August. In recent weeks, Christians institutions have
increasingly come under fire. A Christmas Day bomb attack on a packed
church [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/25/nigerian-church-
bombed-christmas-prayers?intcmp=239" title="] just outside the capital
claimed almost 40 lives.
But Qaqa said the rights of the country's 70 million Christians, who
represent half of Nigeria's population, "would be protected" under the
group's envisioned Islamic state. "Even the prophet Mohammed lived
with non-Muslims and he gave them their dues." But he said everyone
must abide by sharia law: "There are no exceptions. Even if you are a
Muslim and you don't abide by sharia, we will kill you. Even if you
are my own father, we will kill you."
Speaking fluent but non-native Hausa, the lingua franca across the
Sahelian belt on the cusp of the Sahara desert, he said: "It's the
secular state that is responsible for the woes we are seeing today.
People should understand that we are not saying we have to rule
Nigeria, but we have been motivated by the stark injustice in the
land. People underrate us but we have our sights set on [bringing
sharia to] the whole world, not just Nigeria."
Sharia law is already in place across 12 states in the Muslim-majority
north. Few believe the group's radical ideology has traction in
Nigeria's mainly Christian south, which is also home to millions of
Muslims and has so far been out of the group's reach.
Raising his voice for the only time during the interview, Qaqa denied
reports that some governors in northern Nigeria paid the group monthly
allowances in exchange for immunity from attacks. "May God punish
anyone that said so," he said, before adding that the group has
popular support in the north.
"Poor people are tired of the injustice, people are crying for
saviours and they know the messiahs are Boko Haram.
"People were singing songs in [northern cities] Kano and Kaduna
saying: 'We want Boko Haram'," Qaqa said, describing how the group can
blend into the communities in which it operates. "If the masses don't
like us they would have exposed us by now. When Islam comes everyone
would be happy," he said.
Diplomats say Nigeria's security services are belatedly attempting to
gain control of the situation, which was previously dismissed as an
internal, northern squabble often fuelled by politicians with personal
grievances.
"There is an ongoing review of all security agencies," the
presidential aide Ken Wiwa said. "This is a relatively new phenomenon
in Nigeria and the administration is working hard to improve its
capacity to respond. There are various other initiatives which will be
implemented but this is as much a political as a security issue."
An official said Nigeria's central bank was involved in measures aimed
at strangling the group's external funding sources, including speeding
up a cashless economy.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2012
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