B’Haram, others received $3m from bin
Laden



The violent sect, Boko Haram and other
groups in northern Nigeria received $3m from
Osama bin Laden in 2002, according to a
report by some United States intelligence
analysts.
Bin Laden was said to have dispatched an
aide to Nigeria to hand out the seed money in
naira to a wide array of Salafist political
organisations that shared al Qaeda’s goal of
imposing Islamic rule.
According to a report in a United States-
based newspaper, The Daily Beast, the Al-
Qaeda founder helped provide Boko Haram’s
seed money.
Boko Haram was founded by Mohammed
Yusuf in 2002. Yusuf was killed in police
custody in 2009.
The Daily Beast reported on Sunday that
officially, the U.S. intelligence community
believed that the sect had only tangential links
to al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, and that
reports of bin Laden backing the Nigerian
outfit were off-base, but many analysts have
believed that the ties between Boko Haram
and al Qaeda global leadership go much
deeper—and are about more than a little seed
money.
“There were channels between bin laden and
Boko Haram leadership,” one senior U.S.
intelligence offical told The Daily Beast, adding
that “He gave some strategic direction at
times.”
A comprehensive report on Boko Haram
published by the International Crisis Group,
also confirmed that Boko Haram’s early
leader, Mohammed Yusuf, received some seed
money from a disciple of Osama bin Laden
named Mohammed Ali in 2002.
The report added that bin Laden got to know
Ali in the 1990s when he was based in Sudan,
adding that after Ali travelled with bin Laden to
Afghanistan, he was provided with $3m in
Nigerian currency in 2002 and sent to the
north of the country to fund a wide array of
Salafist political organisations to help spread
al-Qaeda’s ideology.
Ali then became involved in the Nigeria’s
Muslim insurgency but was eventually killed.


Culled from Punch