ICC Note:
Turkey formally listed Boko Haram a terrorist organization Tuesday, joining several other nations that had already done so in the past year, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Boko Haram, or “Western education is forbidden,” is a radical Islamic insurgency responsible for more than 2,000 deaths this year alone and the mass-kidnapping of more than 240 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok, Nigeria. The group, founded in 2001, has pursued the establishment of a separate Islamic state for more than a decade. Following its most recent spat of indiscriminate killings, however, questions remain as to whether the group maintains a specific, achievable goal, or if it has simply become an equipped insurgency bent on terrorizing Nigeria’s north.
06/11/2014 Ankara (Sahara Reporters) – Turkey has designated Nigeria’s Boko Haram as a terrorist organization, according to a report in the ANKARA-based KUNA news group in that country.
It is the latest twist of a continued international focus on the search for the still missing 270 Nigerian students, kidnapped by the Boko Haram in April. Turkey, a key member of NATO, has not announced what role they might play in the search, or what military assistance they may issue, in Nigeria’s fight against the Islamist group.
The Turkish government’s decision was widely reported by the Turkish Resmi Gazete (The Official Gazette) on June 10th.
The move by the NATO country includes a freeze on all the assets of the Nigerian group, and its members in Turkey, if found, according to the Gazette.
In New York, the UN Security Council had included Boko Haram into the list of terrorist organizations back on May 22nd at the request from the Nigerian authorities.
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