After Boko Haram reportedly killed hundreds of people in the remote Nigerian town of Baga and detonated a bomb in Maiduguri, The Telegraph estimated the terror group now controls approximately 20,000 square miles of territory, an area the size of Belgium.
The British newspaper characterizes the group as the African version of the Islamic State — a caliphate that has supposedly “achieved mastery over 11 local government areas with a total population exceeding 1.7 million people.”
“There is a copy-cat element at work here,” said Andrew Pocock, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria. “If Isil can declare a Caliphate, then so can we. Boko Haram want to be seen by their peers as grown-up jihadis. They want to show ‘we can control territory, we can control a Caliphate’.”
RAND Corporation: We should pay attention to Boko Haram and Africa.
The Nigerian attacks fell on the heels of the Charlie Hebdo drama in France, although the former did not capture the same amount of corporate media attention despite a significantly higher death toll.
Actor Angelina Jolie, special envoy of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, brought a modicum of attention to Boko Haram’s atrocities on Monday when she urged the United States and other nations to offer Nigeria help to “collect evidence and bring the perpetrators of these attacks to justice.”
In 2012, Obama invoked the War Powers Resolution to increase the number of U.S. military personnel deployed to Nigeria. The incoming Commander of the U. S. Africa Command (Africom) at the time, Gen. David M. Rodriguez, said Boko Haram operations threatened Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Mali and Chad. Rodriguez said the U.S. has authority in Africa in response to the threat posed by al-Qaeda.
Boko Haram: A Wahhabist Project
Omitted from the discussion and from establishment media reports on Boko Haram is the fact the terror group, not unlike the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq — and, according to the BBC, now in Afghanistan — is supported and funded by Saudi Arabia and has also received assistance from Libyan mercenaries linked to al-Qaeda.
In May, 2014, I wrote:
In 2012, The Nigerian Tribune reported Boko Harm’s funding was traced to the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia, specifically from the Al-Muntada Trust Fund. In 2005, The Center for Security Policy stated “Al-Muntada has, incidentally, been particularly active in promoting Wahhabi-style Islamism in Nigeria… Al-Muntada… pays for Nigerian clerics to be ‘brainwashed’ in Saudi universities and imposed on Nigerian Muslims through its well-funded network of mosques and schools.”
Similar schools, known as madrassas, were established in Pakistan during the CIA’s covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. They were financed by Saudi Arabia and its network of charities. “Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan mujahideen,” writes Phil Gasper. The Afghan mujahideen would ultimately produce al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
In addition to support by the Saudis, Boko Haram has received indirect assistance from NATO via Libya’s al-Qaeda mercenaries.
The increasingly brutal attacks by terrorist groups inspired by Wahhabism and funded by Saudi Arabia with the covert assistance of the United State, NATO and the EU serve as a powerful propaganda campaign in preparation for a large scale war against Islam.
ISIS, Boko Haram and the “New Normal”
On Tuesday the French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said ISIS must be wiped out and declared France will increase its participation in air strikes against ISIS.
Reuters reported on Tuesday:
After the United States, France has the largest number of planes and troops involved in the coalition fighting the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), which last year took control of large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
It also has about 3,500 troops and special forces operating in the Sahel-Sahara region hunting down Al Qaeda-linked militants.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar al-Shari’a and Boko Haram are said to operate in the Sahel-Sahara region of northwest Africa.
Archbishop calls for same ‘spirit’ of support as France after ‘2,000 killed’ by Boko Haram http://t.co/qIN2Cvsl1W pic.twitter.com/UE6yIPHw3e
— The Independent (@Independent) January 13, 2015
The NATO invasion of Libya contributed to the spread of jihadist groups in the region and set the stage for the “militarization of the Sahel-Sahara and the entrenchment of foreign powers there,” according to areport commissioned by the Remote Control Project, an organization sponsored by the Network for Social Change.
Africom, short for the United States Africa Command, leads the charge:
The new report notes that the US is increasing its presence more steadily in line with the maturation of its newest combatant command, Africa Command (AFRICOM), and the rolling out of a crisis response concept known as the “New Normal”. Already tested in South Sudan and Libya, this could see US Marines establish bases across the continent with the capacity to deploy within hours to anywhere that US citizens and interests are threatened.
Securing Strategic Minerals for War Matériel
Those interests, erroneously attributed to the American people, include oil — Nigeria is the 13th largest oil producer in the world — and numerous strategic minerals, including chromium, cobalt, platinum and manganese.
Without these minerals, “it would be virtually impossible to produce many defense products such as jet engine, missile components, electronic components, iron, steel, etc.,” notes a report issued by the U.S. Marine Corp.
The main competitor for these strategic minerals is China, which has pushed aside the United States and France in African trade.
Africom was established explicitly to counter this perceived threat.
In 2012, The Guardian noted:
To reassert its waning influence on the continent in the face of growing Chinese investment, the US established Africom – the “Africa Command” of the US military – in October 2008. Africom co-ordinates all US military activity in Africa and, according to its mission statement, “contributes to increasing security and stability in Africa – allowing African states and regional organizations to promote democracy, to expand development, to provide for their common defense, and to better serve their people”.
Or, more accurately, to provide for the military-industrial complex, as Vice Admiral Robert Moeller pointed out during a conference in 2008. Moeller said Africom’s mission is about preserving “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market.”
Boko Haram: Problem-Reaction-Solution
Minus the threat of Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Shari’a, Africom and its partners would have scarce pretext for intervening in Africa and countering the competitive presence of China.
Like ISIS in Syria, these terror groups were specifically designed to fulfill a problem-reaction-solution agenda. Ultimately, the war against ISIS will displace the al-Assad government in Syria and allow for the reintroduction of troops in Iraq and, as previously noted, in Afghanistan. The blueprint for Syria follows that of Libya and Iraq — failed state status and irreconcilable differences between social and political factions.
The global elite are now producing a wave of heretofore unimaginable violence and brutality. The accompanying propaganda campaign will, as it did on 9/11, forge the sort of consensus required to fully engage and, in the process, marginalize those who oppose the agenda and its deadly consequences.
