Boko Haram claims responsibility for attacks on telephone masts in Nigeria

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Islamic sect Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attacks on telecommunications base stations in some parts of northern Nigeria, which have disrupted telephone and related services in the area.

“We are attacking GSM companies because they have helped security agencies to arrest and kill many of our members, and we will continue with our attacks on them until they stop,” the online Nigerian Premium Times newspaper quoted sect spokesman Abu Qaqa as saying in an e-mail message to the paper Thursday evening.

Base stations owned by major mobile phone companies like MTN, Airtel and Globacom in Borno, Yobe, Bauchi and Kano states were attacked by unknown gunmen riding on motorcycles, razing down some of them.

Meanwhile, the sect has also threatened to attack any journalist working for the Hausa Service of the Voice of America as well as primary schools in the north.

''We advise any reporter or correspondent working with the station (VOA) to resign, otherwise we will not hesitate (to attack) any of them we come across anywhere,” Qaqa said, while explaining that the plan to intensify attacks on primary schools was due to the “attack on Islamic schools by security agencies".

The sect has previously issued threats against the media, while it has carried out bomb attacks on some of them.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa language, launched its violent campaign in 2009, after security agents killed its leader, Mohammed Yusuf.

Since then, the sect has killed over 1,400 in gun and bomb attacks.

Its objectives include the setting up of an Islamic state in secular Nigeria.
-0- PANA SEG/MA 6Sept2012