Turkey lists Boko Haram as terrorist organization

ANKARA

Nigerian had launched the campaign 'Bring back our girls' to demand the release of more than 300 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram. The campaign received a global repercussion. REUTERS Photo / Afolabi Sotunde

The Turkish government has blacklisted Nigeria’s fundamentalist militant group Boko Haram in line with a U.N. Security Council decision that recently placed the group on the U.N.’s list of terrorist organizations associated with al-Qaeda.

The related decision by the Council of Ministers went into force after being published in the June 10 edition of the Official Gazette. Accordingly, a decision dated Sept. 30, 2013 concerning the seizing of the assets of persons and legal entities that have been listed by the U.N. Security Council resolutions was updated and Boko Haram was added.

In late May, the U.N. Security Council, acting on Nigerian request, placed Boko Haram on the U.N.’s list of terrorist organizations associated with al-Qaeda.

The Turkish government’s decision concerning Boko Haram came a week after it eventually listed the al-Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaeda operating in Syria and Lebanon, as a terrorist organization, in a sign that Ankara’s concerns are growing over the rise of radicals across the 900-kilometer border.

Gunmen kidnap 20 women

Meanwhile, in northeast Nigeria, suspected Boko Haram gunmen have reportedly kidnapped 20 women from a nomadic settlement near the town of Chibok, where the Islamic militants abducted more than 300 schoolgirls and young women on April 15.

A member of the vigilante groups set up to resist Boko Haram's attacks, said the men arrived on June 5 in the Garkin Fulani settlement and forced the women to enter their vehicles at gunpoint. He says they drove away to an unknown location in the remote stretch of Borno state. He also said the group also took three young men who tried to stop the kidnapping.

Nigeria's Defense Headquarters said June 9 that troops prevented raids by Boko Haram this weekend on villages in Borno and neighboring Adamawa state. Soldiers killed more than 50 militants on June 7 night as they were on their way to attack communities, defense spokesman Chris Oluklade said in an emailed statement.

The Nigerian military has come under rising criticism from Nigerians who say they're not protected by the security forces, left to fend off attacks by Boko Haram on their own.

Boko Haram, which wants to establish Islamic state in Nigeria, has been taking over villages in the northeast, killing and terrorizing civilians and political leaders. Thousands of people have been killed in the five-year-old insurgency, more than 2,000 people have been killed so far this year, and an estimated 750,000 Nigerians have been driven from their homes.

In recent weeks, the extremists have used a two-pronged strategy and widened their theater of operation beyond the remote northeast of the country. The group has bombed bus stations and marketplaces in three cities, killing about 250 people, and they are staging daily attacks on northeast villages, killing 20 people one day, and 50 another.