Al-Qaida's Thoughts on Boko Haram Will Make You Even More Terrified For Those Missing Girls

[MrScorpio]

The news: You know that you're getting too extreme if even al-Qaida is giving you major side-eye.

That's precisely what's happening with Boko Haram, the Islamist group behind the April kidnapping of over 270 schoolgirls in Nigeria. Though it's known to be loosely affiliated with al-Qaida, it is now catching flak from Islamist militants who believe that the group went too far and is even being counterproductive to al-Qaida's goals.

The New York Times contends that Muslim scholars and Islamist parties around the world rejected Boko Haram many years ago for its "senseless cruelty and capricious violence against civilians." But despite their self-distancing, this week's actions have been too much even for "fellow militants normally eager to condone terrorist acts against the West and its allies." Notes the Times:

"'Such news is spread to taint the image of the Mujahedeen,' wrote one dubious poster on a web forum used by Islamic militants whose administrator uses a picture of Osama bin Laden."

http://www.policymic.com/articles/89121/al-qaida-s-thoughts-on-boko-haram-will-make-even-you-more-terrified-for-those-missing-girls

If you've lost al-Qaida, you've lost Middle Islamic Fundamentalism.

[msongs]

1. like 9/11 was not "...violence against civilians" nt

[Warpy]

3. Not against Muslim civilians, who are the only ones who count to al Qaeda

They killed plenty of Muslims in the WTC, though.

What people are forgetting about the Nigerian bunch is their mass murder of boys at the mens' boarding school. The girls lived through it because there is money to be made by selling them to the highest bidders. Then they can afford more weapons.

French news tonight was talking about the lukewarm response by the Nigerian government that a lot of people within that country are starting to see as near complicity. I think things are about to get really interesting for people in their government.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. I saw that video with Abubaker Sekau. He looked pretty twitchy.

Like he was psycho, or hopped up on speed or something.

Maybe Captagon, Middle Eastern amphetamines.

"Captagon: The Amphetamine Fueling Syria's Civil War"

http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/jan/13/captagon-amphetamine-syria-war-middle-east

As Syria sinks ever deeper into civil war, evidence is starting to emerge that a brutal and bloody conflict that has left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced as many as two million is now also being fuelled by both the export and consumption of rapidly increasing quantities of illegal drugs.

Separate investigations by the news agency Reuters and Time magazine have found that the growing trade in Syrian-made Captagon – an amphetamine widely consumed in the Middle East but almost unknown elsewhere – generated revenues of millions of dollars inside the country last year, some of which was almost certainly used to fund weapons, while combatants on both sides are reportedly turning to the stimulant to help them keep fighting.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Syria has long been a transit point for drugs coming from Europe, Turkey and Lebanon and destined for the wealthy Gulf states. But the breakdown of law and order, collapse of the country's infrastructure and proliferation of armed groups have now turned it into a major producer, Reuters says. Production in Lebanon's Bekaa valley – a traditional centre for the drug – fell 90% last year from 2011, with the decline largely attributed to production inside Syria.

Neither investigation found conclusive evidence that the warring sides were using profits from the drug directly to buy weapons, but both quoted experts and officials as saying this was highly likely. A former US Treasury official, Matthew Levitt, pointed out that the Iranian-funded, Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, which is robustly backing Syria's Assad regime, "has a long history of dabbling in the drug trade to help with funding".

<snip>

[Scootaloo]

4. Now that you mention it...

That this guy may be a tweaker would not surprise me..

has squat-all to do with the Middle East, though, since central-west Africa's as far away from the middle east as Sweden is.