Boko Haram fails to make it to US black list as Nigeria's Christians continue being massacred

The President of the Christians Association in Nigeria requested from the United States to include the Islamic group of Boko Haram on its list of terrorist movements. This as a senior U.S. official called to give priority to the fight against social inequality in the country.

By the end of June, the United States had included three leaders of the Boko Haram on its blacklist of terrorism, but has failed to dub the group responsible for the deaths of more than a thousand people, including many Christians since 2009 as a terrorist organization.

On Tuesday the radical Islamist sect claimed responsibility  for the weekend attacks that have killed at least 58 people including two lawmakers in central Nigeria, adding a new dimension to a security crisis in a region that has seen years of religious violence.
 
Christians "will not know peace again" if they do not accept Islam, said a statement from the Boko Haram sect obtained by The Associated Press.
 
The northern-based group claimed responsibility for weekend attacks in Plateau state, though some suggested they had acted with local communities.
 
"(Boko Haram) wants to inform the world of its delight over the success of the attacks we launched on Barkin Ladi and Riyom in Plateau state on Christians and security operatives, including members of the National Assembly," the statement said.
 
Hundreds of assailants armed with guns and machetes stormed a dozen Christian villages on Saturday, the army said. Some attackers wore police uniforms and bullet-proof vests, said Capt. Mustapha Saliu, a spokesman for a special unit of police and soldiers deployed to halt long-running violence in the area.
 
The following day, as dignitaries attended a mass burial for the victims, assailants attacked again, killing a federal senator and a state lawmaker.
 
The Nigerian Red Cross said late Sunday that aid workers had counted 58 bodies as they continued to search for more. An updated death toll was not immediately available Tuesday.
 
Initial blame quickly fell on Muslim herdsmen who often clash with Christian farmers from a different tribe.
 
Plateau state has been torn apart in recent years by violence pitting its different ethnic groups and major religions  Christianity and Islam  against each other. Politics and economics also fuel fighting in this region of farmlands that supply basics like potatoes, corn and tomatoes to the rest of the nation.
 
Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people, is largely divided into a mainly Christian south and a mostly Muslim north. Violence-torn Plateau state is in the "middle belt" where the two meet. Human Rights Watch says at least 1,000 people were killed in communal clashes around the state capital, Jos, in 2010.
 
Boko Haram's first reported attack in Plateau State was multiple blasts on Christmas Day of 2010 that killed at least 32 people in Jos.

AP/LBCI