Boko Haram now classified as terror group in UK

•Minister presents bill in parliament Friday

Support for two extremist groups Minbar Ansar Deen and Boko Haram is to be made a criminal offence in the United Kingdom.

According to reports monitored yesterday, UK Home Secretary Theresa May has asked for the two radical Islamist organisations to be banned under terrorism laws. If approved by Parliament, both will be banned from operating in the UK from Friday, the Home Office said. Read more

The Home Office has not yet offered further information on why it is pursuing the ban of both groups. Minbar Ansar Deen is based in the UK, while Boko Haram operates from Nigeria.

Minbar Ansar Deen, also known as Ansar al-Sharia UK promotes terrorism by distributing content through a forum on its website, which encourages individuals to travel overseas to engage in extremist activity, specifically fighting, according to the Home Office. Boko Haram is a militant Islamist group based in Nigeria led by the country’s most wanted man, Abubakar Shekau.

Its name means “Western education is forbidden” and it has waged an insurgency for more than a decade. If the two groups are banned, it will be illegal to support or become a member of either group, to arrange meetings or wear clothing in support of them. Offenders could face fines of up to £5,000 or up to 10 years in prison.

Raffaello Pantucci, Senior Research Fellow at the RUSI think tank, said the move indicated that the government sees them as a “potential threat”.

Banning the groups would give the police powers to tackle their support networks. The UK-based Minbar Ansar Deen’s website has links to Abu Nusaybah, who was arrested after appearing on the BBC’s Newsnight programme talking about Michael Adebolajo, one of the suspects in the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich.

Mr Pantucci said: “Does that constitute a ‘link’, we don’t know. But looking at their website, they seem to come from the same constellation.” Historically there is little evidence of Boko Haram targeting the UK, Mr Pantucci said. “Britain’s Nigerian community is 90 per cent Christian,” said Mr Pantucci, adding that Nigerian terror suspects in the UK were “usually Muslim converts”.

However, earlier this year Boko Haram kidnapped a French family in Cameroon. A Nigerian government report revealed the group was paid more than £2m before releasing its hostages.

The Home Office’s move to ban the group could indicate that it is becoming more international, “or leaning in that direction”, Mr Pantucci said. There are 49 international terror organisations proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000, including al-Qaeda, al-Shabab and Islam4UK.

The latter, previously led by the radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary, was banned in 2010. In Northern Ireland, 14 organisations were proscribed under previous legislation.

Culled from The Sun newspaper