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Nigeria: Govt and Boko Haram begin mediated talks
Shekau has appeared in two video tapes posted on YouTube in January claiming leadership of the sect and making bellicose threats against security forces.
Since then, however, Nigeria’s military has made some key arrests and senior members of the sect have been killed, while the sophistication and scale of its attacks have fallen since a wave of deadly strikes from November to January.
Two security sources said one of the people involved in the negotiations was a close ally of Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram who died in police custody in 2009, triggering a widespread violent uprising by the sect. They were both members of a group called the Spring Council of Sharia.
Shekau has not said the group was interested in dialogue in his videos and neither has the group’s spokesman, Abu Qaqa, who holds sporadic telephone interviews with local media in the sect’s heartland of Maiduguri.
But they have not ruled them out completely either.
Different Factions
Jonathan told Reuters in January that the government was open to dialogue but said sect members were hidden and therefore direct talks were unlikely.
He noted that talks to resolve the conflict in the oil producing Niger Delta, that ended with an amnesty in 2009, were different in that officials knew who the militants’ leaders were and how to contact them.
