• Killed 1,132 in 364 attacks, says U.S. report
• Group’s, Talibans’ record higher than killings by Al-Qaeda, Maoists, Al-Shabaah
• Outrage at ACN’s opposition to ban on group
• PDP accuses party of support for insurgents
WITH only the Talibans in Afghanistan ahead, Boko Haram is now the second widely known perpetrator of terrorism in the world, according to a report by the United States (U.S.) government.
Just last week, the U.S. State Department announced a $7 million bounty for information that will lead to the capture of the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau.
An annex to the U.S. government report on terrorism last year, just made available to The Guardian, shows that besides the Taliban in Afghanistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria had the highest number of terror attacks last year and killed also the second highest number of people.
The statistical report called ‘START’ conducted by the University of Maryland for the American government on global terrorism in 2012 has revealed that while the Talibans killed 1,842 people in 525 attacks last year, and came tops on the infamous ranking, Boko Haram came second killing 1,132 in 364 attacks.
Both the Talibans and Boko Haram killed more than Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Maoists in India, Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula among other global terrorist groups.
The statistical report also revealed that of the top 10 countries with the most terrorist attacks last year, Nigeria came fifth because of the activities of Boko Haram.
Besides, Nigeria ranked fourth in number of deaths from terrorist attacks. According to the statistical information attached to the recent “U.S. Terrorism 2012 reports”, last year alone, there were a total number of 546 terror attacks in Nigeria with 1,386 killed.
“The average lethality of terrorist attacks in Nigeria (2.54 deaths per attack) is more than 50 per cent higher than the global average of 1.64.”
The statistical report revealed that in 2012, the majority of highly lethal attacks -159 in all -, took place in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria and Syria, killing a total of 2,880 people.
The report stated that Boko Haram “was responsible for a number of highly lethal attacks in 2012, including a series of co-ordinated bombings and armed assaults in Kano, Nigeria, on January 20 that killed an estimated 190 people.”
The U.S. laws require the government in its yearly terrorism reports to include complete statistical information on number of individuals killed, injured or kidnapped by each terrorist group during the preceding year.
Last year June, the U.S. State Department contracted the consortium to collect the statistical data.
“In tackling this development, President Goodluck Jonathan certainly did explore all available avenues to make Boko Haram and its accomplices to embrace peace and even conditionally disarm its membership and this was rebuffed continuously.
It added: “We want to let the ACN know that Nigerians may be gullible but not totally stupid, any one or group who could support the Boko Haram despite all the havoc they created in this nation is not only violence-oriented, but is an enemy of peace and does not deserve to be given the slightest opportunity to go near Aso Rock let alone enter into it. God has only shown Nigerians the make-up of people seeking our votes to rule us. By this singular act, we are no longer deceived by the below par performance of some of the ACN governors, it’s merely a ploy to lure Nigerians to their own doom. ACN or APC if given opportunity to run the affairs of this nation would use Boko Haram to terrorise Nigerians. Note that any man or group that supports evil is himself or herself evil.”
Read More: TheGuardian News
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