A little known breakaway faction of Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for Monday’s dawn raid on the detention facility of the police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Abuja.
The Jama’atu Ansarul Musilimina fi Biladis Sudan, which translates as “Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa”, in two separate emails written in English and circulated to media houses yesterday, contradicted the police account of the incident, claiming that it had secured the release of 323 captives, including 37 of its members, during the raid.
It said one of the members it rescued was a woman and that none of them was recaptured.
The police had said that they re-arrested 25 out of 30 detainees that fled the detention centre during the shootout.
At least seven persons, including two policemen, were killed in the attack.
Yesterday’s email from the group, unedited, reads: “We are indeed thankful to Allah SWT to have granted us a perfect success as a result of the attack on SARS detention center that took place yesterday in Garki area II Abuja.
“It is indeed with a tremendous effort and success to inform the general public that the attack has reached a 100% success for all our 37 members including one woman (who was detent for more than 6 months) were rescued and are presently with us without a single injury not to talk of recapture.
“Also the other 286 suspects were also rescued and vanished making the total of 323 all together in a place which can accommodate less than 50 people. What a brutality by the Nigerian security. It is a real human right violation.”
In another e-mail, Ansaru vowed to raid other detention facilities in order to set free suspected militants.
It said: “Allah SWT has obligated us to help those that are oppressed, especially those oppressions that is taking place in the security cells, prisons and other detention centers etc. and has become part of the main functions and basics that form Jama’atu Ansasrul Muslimina fi Biladissudan.
“We are stating loud and clear that many of those captured by the Nigerian security or by the Christian in Plateau state such as the women and children in Langtang, Yalwan Shandam etc to mention but a few by Allah’s grace we are matching towards their freedom.
“Lastly, we are calling upon all Muslims to come and join hands with us in carrying out this noble duty that Allah SWT has commanded us to do.”
The statement was signed by one Abu Usamatal Ansari, identified as Amir or leader of JAMBS.
Meanwhile, the extremist group was outlawed by the British government last Thursday. Britain blamed it for acts of terror, including the kidnap and subsequent execution of an Italian and a Briton sometime this year.
The two men Britain believes the group murdered were Chris McManus, a Briton, and Franco Lamolinara, an Italian.
They were kidnapped in May last year in Sokoto and their captors killed them during a British-Nigerian rescue mission in March this year.
Britain’s interior ministry described Ansaru as “a Nigeria-based terrorist organisation motivated by an anti-Nigerian government and anti-Western agenda”.
The British government said the group has links with Al-Qaeda.
“An order has been approved today by parliament which will proscribe Ansaru from midnight on Thursday evening, making membership of, and support for, the organisation a criminal offence,” the interior ministry said in a statement.
Ansaru came into the front burner in January this year when it issued a statement announcing its formation and picking holes in the mode of operation of its parent-group, Boko Haram.
It had pledged to wage bloody war not only in Nigeria but across the black Africa, to institute strict Islamic law. It however stated that it will not attack innocent civilians.
The group is led by one Abu Usamata al-Ansari. However, since the announcing of its formation, nothing was heard from it until this time.
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