http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2055976,00.html
Al-Qaeda 'funds' terror training Abuja - Prosecutors charged a Nigerian man on Tuesday with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from al-Qaieda and using the funds to send young men off for a terrorism training elsewhere in West Africa. State prosecutor Abdullahi Mukaillu told a federal court in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, that 50-year old Mohammed Damagun received $300 000 in a London bank in late 2002. The prosecutor said Damagun used the funds last year to sponsor a trip for 17 youths from Nigeria's Muslim north to the Arab-dominated nation of Mauritania, where they were to learn terror tactics. According to the prosecutor, Damagun, who lived in Abuja, sought "to facilitate the spread of extremism and various acts and techniques on terrorism". Damagun deny the charges Damagun, who faced at least 15 years in prison if found guilty, denied the charges, which included accusations that he belonged to a banned Islamic group in Nigeria. Court was adjourned for further investigation. Damagun was an executive for a Nigerian media company that published a newspaper considered critical of Nigeria's government and ruling party. Mauritanian government officials weren't immediately available for comment. Mauritania - thousands of kilometres west from Nigeria along the strip of land just below the Sahara Desert - had battled militants of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an Algerian insurgent group allied with al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden in 2003 identified Nigeria, with 140 million people largely split between a predominantly Muslim north and a Christian-majority south, as a target for liberation. Muslim, Christian servants 'work together' Nigeria's federal government was staunchly secular and despite occasional flare-ups of religious and sectarian violence, Muslim and Christian civil servants worked together at all levels. The president was Christian, yet 12 of Nigeria's 36 states adhered to Islamic law, or Shariah, but court-ordered amputations or executions were rarely carried out. Fundamentalism, though, was not unheard of in northern Nigeria. Nigeria was considered a close ally of the United States, which received about 12% of its crude oil from Nigeria, Africa's largest petroleum producer. The opening of the case on Tuesday against Damagun wasn't the first government charge of al-Qaeda meddling in Nigeria. Last month, 40-year-old Mohammed Ashafa, a Muslim from the northern city of Kano, received $1 500 from two Pakistanis believed to be al-Qaeda operatives "to identify and carry out terrorist attacks" on the homes of American living in Nigeria. Ashafa was also charged with funding 21 foreign fighters to receive training from an Algerian terror network. He also faced at least 15 years in jail if convicted. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
