US, Nigeria set for talks on Boko Haram
Nigeria and the United States of America (USA) are set for high-level
talks in Washington next month with the issue of Boko Haram likely to top the
agenda.
The US Justice
Department is already pressing the State Department to designate the Islamist
sect as a "foreign terrorist organisation," according to a document
obtained by Reuters.
Lisa Monaco,
head of the Justice Department's national security division, sent a letter in
January to State Departmentcounter-terrorism chief Daniel Benjamin requesting
that Boko Haram be put on the list.
State Department
representatives are said to have lobbied Congress to try to stop legislation
which would force the administration to act against the group or explain why
they had not done so.
On Thursday,
Rep. Patrick Meehan, a Republican who chairs a House subcommittee on Homeland
Security, introduced an amendment to a defence bill that does just that, after
he said State officials inexplicably cancelled a briefing on Boko Haram.
In several
recent cases, including that of the underwear bomber, in which a Nigerian,
Farouk Abdulmuttalab, failed to blow up an airliner headed to Detroit on
Christmas Day 2009, the United States has been handcuffed by waiting too long
to designate a group as "terrorists," Meehan said.
"Only
later, after they've committed terrible acts have we put them on the list of
foreign terrorists," Meehan told Reuters. "To not have the capacity
that it gives law enforcement to both monitor and to hold people who give
material support to an organisation like that, puts us at a disadvantage."
Representative
Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said: "Boko
Haram claimed credit for the suicide bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Abuja,
Nigeria, killing 23 people and injuring more than 80 others.
"That meets
my definition of a terrorist group, but if the administration has a reason why
they don't want to designate them, I would like to hear it," Rogers
said.
A senior State
Department official said the department was "very concerned about violence
in Nigeria" and added that it was "looking at this very
carefully."
The official
insisted the department was "not stalling or dragging our feet." But
he noted that adding a group to the sanctions list is a "rigorous process
which has to stand up in a court of law."
Also on Thursday,
Rep. Charlie Dent added an amendment to a foreign affairs bill that would also
require State to explain why Boko Haram had not been designated a terrorist
organization. The measure passed the House Appropriations Committee
Thursday.
US, Nigeria set for talks on Boko Haram
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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