ML Reveal: Osama bin Laden had contact with Boko Haram – UK Guardian

A new report in The Guardian of London says slain Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, had regular contact with Nigerian militant sect, Boko Haram, before he was killed on May 2, 2011.

The information was gleaned from documents recovered from the house where bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by United States Navy Seals. A Washington D.C source familiar with the documents told the paper bin Laden appeared to have been in direct or indirect communication with Boko Haram as well as many other militant outfits.

But the paper said it remained unclear whether Boko Haram, which has been responsible for a series of suicide attacks and bombings in the last year, is in touch with al-Qaeda or one of its affiliates, Al Qaeda in the Maghreb.

But documents in the cache show that leaders of the Nigerian group had been in contact with top levels of al-Qaeda in the past 18 months – confirming claims made to the Guardian in January by a senior Boko Haram figure.

Other papers in the haul are now likely to be declassified, the paper says. They include memos apparently dictated by bin Laden urging followers to avoid indiscriminate attacks which kill Muslims and pondering a rebranding of al-Qaeda under a new name.