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Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria meets with family of slain sect leader in bid to halt bloody attacks
Yusuf’s relatives also provided rare details about the group, saying they have representatives in Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
“They said the Nigerian security forces and the army cannot crush them because they have the capacity to reach out to anywhere if they want to,” Sani said.
Lawyer Zannah Mustapha, who runs a local nonprofit in Maiduguri and attended the talks, told The Associated Press on Friday the conversation took place largely as Sani described it.
It remains unclear who is actually leading Boko Haram since Yusuf’s death. Analysts and diplomats have said they believe the sect is split into at least three sub-groups, each with its own loose command-and-control structure.
Complex bank robberies appear to be aimed at funding the group, but Yusuf’s family said about 40 percent of the sect’s funding now comes from outside of Nigeria.
Last month, the commander for U.S. military operations in Africa told the AP that Boko Haram may be trying to coordinate attacks with al-Shabab of Somalia and north African terror group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.
Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people, is split largely between a Christian south and a Muslim north. Unemployment and unceasing poverty, coming despite the nation making billions a year from oil production, have fueled resentment in recent years in the north. Boko Haram and other extremist groups have tapped into that unrest.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
