US CONGRESS WANTS BOKO HARAM LISTED AS TERROR GROUP

The United States (US) Congress is stepping up pressure on the Barack
Obama administration to formally designate the Boko Haram sect, which
has alleged al-Qaeda links, as a "foreign terrorist organization".
Mr Scott Brown, a Republican senator from Massachusetts, wrote
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton late last week on the matter.
He urged Mrs Clinton to designate thesect, which has been linked to
700 killings in Nigeria in the past 18 months, as a terrorist
organisation under US law.
ON Sunday, US Representatives, Peter King and Patrick Meehan, chairmen
of the House Homeland Security Committee and its counterterrorism
subcommittee, released a letter they sent to Clinton last Friday,
suggestingthat the administration was moving too slowly on the matter.
King and Meehan cited a Reuters' report last week about how the
Justice Department earlier this year had urged the State Department to
apply the "foreign terrorist" designation to Boko Haram. The
congressmen suggested that by not doing so, the department was
"denying the United States intelligence and law enforcement
communities the tools they need to combat an al Qaeda-affiliated
terrorist organization.




Source: Ascology

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