US confirms Boko Haram, bandits working together to blackmail Buhari regime

Boko Haram,

A panel of United States policymakers has uncovered how Boko Haram terrorists operating in the North-East have been collaborating with armed bandits terrorising communities across the North-West to collect ransom from the Buhari administration and civilian victims, The Wall Street Journal reports.

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The reports stated that the U.S. has not recognised armed banditry as a direct threat to its interest, but officials have been monitoring bandit commanders and their possible coordination with Boko Haram insurgents.

“The bandits are a distant priority for U.S. policy makers focused on Nigeria’s jihadist threat, though American officials say they have intercepted calls from suspected Islamist militants in the northeast who are advising bandits in the northwest on kidnapping operations and negotiations,” the Journal said in a report published on Saturday.

The report could bolster widespread calls for President Muhammadu Buhari to declare the bandits as terrorists, even though they have no declared political or religious aim.

Administration officials said the government was not in a hurry to label the bandits, but has ordered security forces to intensify raids of unsecured forests and other hideouts.

”The problem is to understand the culture of the cattle rearers, the Nigerian cattle rearers do not carry anything more than a stick. Sometimes they carry machetes to just cut some herbs for the cattle, but those foreigners from ?L

But the bandits have acquired weapons far more assorted than AK-47, and they have recently shot down a fighter jet deployed to conduct reconnaissance operations in the hostile region.

“Criminal factions appear to be better equipped with larger-capacity advanced weaponry than national security agencies,” the Journal reported, citing a security memo presented to Buhari in July.

The Journal disclosed the U.S. findings as the outlet was reporting that the Nigerian Air Force paid N20 million in ransom to buy back an anti-aircraft machine gun from bandits before they could use the machine to bring down the president’s plane.

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