Surge of militant network in Sahara

Onlookers stand by a destroyed car at the site of a bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church, claimed by Boko Haram. Photo / AP

Attacks on churchgoers yesterday in Nigeria, where relations between Muslims and Christians are already tense, point to a worrying increase in violent Islamism across Saharan West Africa that threatens to destabilise the fragile region.

The bomb blasts were claimed by militant Islamic sect Boko Haram - an extremist group from Nigeria's majority Muslim northeast - which has escalated its campaign to impose sharia law across the country.

At least 39 people died as bombs went off in the capital Abuja and Jos, while churches and security forces were targeted in three other towns.

As the world focuses on violent Islamism in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the rise of militant networks across Saharan Africa has largely gone unchecked. After a crackdown by the Algerian Government that began in 2008, the al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group has spread its influence south across the vast Sahara and into Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

An area that once drew tourists to its desert landscapes has become a no-go area, with scores of kidnappings and executions of foreigners. At least five Europeans are still hostage to what are believed to be AQIM militants.

Sheltered by the Sahara - so vast that even well resourced forces would find it impossible to police - AQIM is determined to make further forays south and has set its sights on the 80 million Muslims living predominantly in Nigeria's northern provinces.

Boko Haram started as an indigenous insurgency with an intense hatred of Nigeria's Christian south that launched a violent campaign to install sharia law. Its goals are still inherently local. But there are fears the more internationalist militant networks in the area are hoping to link up with Nigeria's most notorious Islamists.

No direct evidence tying Boko Haram to al Qaeda has been established. But senior AQIM leaders have released supportive statements praising their work while Boko Haram spokesman Abul Qaqa said in November his group had reached out to them and received assistance.

Any alliance between Nigerian and global Islamists would be of major concern, giving Boko Haram legitimacy in jihadist circles and access to finances and expertise, and creating an arc of violent Islamists stretching from Somalia to Mali.

Most of the deaths came at St Theresa's Church in the town of Madalla near Abuja where 1000 people were at a Christmas service. Churchgoers described chaos and carnage after a bomb powerful enough to destroy sections of the roof and badly damage nearby buildings went off.

"We were in the church with my family when we heard the explosion. I ran out," said Timothy Onyekwere. "I don't know how many were killed, but there were many dead."

Church officials said 35 bodies had been counted. Another bomb went off in the central city of Jos, where 80 people were killed in attacks last Christmas. Three more were reported dead in blasts in the northeastern city of Damaturu, where fighting between security forces and the sect has killed at least 61 people in recent days.

Religious tensions along Nigeria's middle belt, where the country's predominantly Christian south meets the Muslim north, have flared up regularly since large-scale rioting left thousands dead in 2000. In the last two years a sect which bases itself loosely on Afghanistan's Taleban has carried out sophisticated attacks outside the northern Nigerian states of Yobe, Kano, Bauchi, Borno and Kaduna.

Poverty and neglect of Nigeria's northeast by corrupt central government has made the area a breeding ground for Islamic extremists. Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the oil-producing Niger Delta in the south, has vowed to break Boko Haram, but the sect has killed 500 people this year.

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BRUTAL SECT

Dec 22-24: Boko Haram members fight with police and military forces around the city of Damaturu, leaving at least 61 people dead.

Nov 4: Sect members bomb government buildings and shoot their way through the city of Damaturu, killing more than 100 people, while bombs and a suicide attack in Maiduguri leave 4 dead.

Aug 26: A sect member detonates a car loaded with explosives at the United Nations headquarters in Abuja, killing 24 people and wounding another 116.

Jun 16: A car loaded with explosives detonates at the federal police headquarters in Abuja, killing at least two people. Police first call the attack a suicide bombing, but later deny it.

Apr 9: Gunmen from the sect set fire into the Maiduguri International Hotel and kill a politician ahead of local elections.

Apr 8: A bomb allegedly planted by the sect explodes at an election office in Suleja in Niger state, killing 16 people.

Jan 28: Gunmen with the sect shoot and kill the leading candidate for governor in Borno state and six others in his entourage.

- AP