The US State Department has recently labelled 3 members of Boko Haram (Western education is a sin), as terrorists. AFP reports:
The three Boko Haram leaders labeled as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists”, are Abubakar Shekau, Abubakar Adam Kambar, and Khalid al-Barnawi.
The terrorist status of Boko Haram itself, is left undecided. Apparently, FTO status is a “strategy”:
Answering reporters question at a briefing at the State Department in Washington DC, the department’s spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, said, “More broadly, as you know, there is always this question of whether designating individuals within an organization is the most effective strategy or whether the designating (of) the whole organization is the most effective strategy. So, we’re continuing to look at the question of a broader designation.”
US State Department added:
She however noted that Boko Haram was at the moment a loosely constructed group attached to trying to address grievances in the North.
Nuland said there were different views within the group, and US was looking at that, while also working with Nigerian authorities to encourage dialogue with forces in the North with a view to ensuring that, “a unified, multi – pluralistic Nigeria where the rights of all people, no matter their religion, no matter where they live, are protected in its own security efforts.”
By contrast, here is a spokesman for Boko Haram:
“We launched these attacks to prove the Nigerian security wrong and to debunk their claim that we have been weakened by the military crackdown. The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state”.
Watch from 27:32 – key part from 29:40:
At 32:49, Nuland speaks of sending “a shot across the bow”, against “those who are considering extreme violence to address grievances in the North.”
The level of self deception is astounding, isn’t it?
