Al Qaeda linked to Nigerian bombing

Washington Times:

An al Qaeda North African affiliate group likely trained the terrorists who carried out the deadly suicide attack on the U.N. headquarters in Nigeria.

A suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives through a security barrier and into the lobby of the U.N. headquarters building in Abuja, the Nigerian political capital on Friday, killing 23 people and wounding 76 more.

A Nigerian Muslim extremist group called Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack, and a U.S. official said intelligence reporting revealed that members of the group had trained at al Qaeda camps in nearby Mali.

“Some Boko Haram members trained with AQIM [al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the group’s North African affiliate] which probably contributed to this more violent attack,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in discussing intelligence matters.

Nigerian news media reported this week that some of those arrested in connection with the bombing attack were graduates of al Qaeda camps in Mali or of training from the extremist insurgent group al Shabab in Somalia.

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The Mali branch of al Qaeda is as dangerous as the Yemen branch and needs some attention from Hell Fire attacks. It apparently has not been a priority for the CIA, but it needs to move up on their target list.