Boko Haram
In Hausa Language, Boko Haram means "Western education is sacrilege". Boko Haram or "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad" is a terrorist organisation based in the northeast of Nigeria.
- Boko Haram, which was founded by Mohammed Yusuf in early 21st century, is an Islamist movement which strongly opposes man-made laws. The outfit has been recently in news for hundred of deaths in Nigeria.
- It first came in limelight in 2005 and more recently in 2012 when death toll of a series of co-ordinated bombing attacks in Kano, Nigeria, rose to more than 140. The attacks, which targeted police stations across the city, are attributed to Boko Haram.
- Official Name: People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad
- Formed in Maiduguri town which is also now dubbed as Boko Haram.
- "Boko Haram" comes from the Hausa word boko meaning "western education" and the Arabic word Haram figuratively meaning "sin"
- The members of the group do not interact with the local Muslim population and have carried out assassinations in the past of anyone who criticises it, including Muslim clerics.
- It was responsible for January 2012 Kano bombings on 20 January 2012.
- On 28 January 2012, the Nigerian Army killed 11 Boko Haram insurgents.
- On 8 February 2012, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the army headquarters in Kaduna.
- The group’s founder and then leader Mohammed Yusuf was killed during police custody. After Yusuf’s killing, a new leader emerged whose identity was not known at the time.
- In January 2012, Abubakar Shekau, a former deputy to Yusuf, appeared in a video posted on YouTube. According to Reuters, Shekau took control of the group after Yusuf’s death in 2009
