The U.S. recently labeled Boko Haram, the militant Nigerian group, as a terrorist organization. The French say the group trained in the North African country of Mali with a branch from al-Qaeda.
The French cited documents found in the Ifoghas Mountains a remote area in northern Mali early this year. The French said that the presence of Boko Haram there demonstrates the connections between jihad groups inside Africa.
Boko Haram was formed back in 2009 and seeks to impose in northern Nigeria, Islamic law and has been blamed for thousands of killings including the 2011 bombing of a building that housed the United Nations.
A French priest on Thursday was kidnapped in Cameroon, close to the Nigeria border in a region where the Boko Haram has been known to have operations, said the Foreign Ministry in France.
While the Boko Haram is believed to be linked to al-Qaeda affiliated organizations in the northern deserts, the actual place for training members of the group in northern Mali was not known until now.
The al-Qaeda branch in North Africa teamed together with a group of extremists known as the Tuaregs to take control of Northern Mali, until an African force backed by the French drove them out earlier in the year.
There continues to be concerns that have remained for quite some time that extremists throughout the desert regions that are poorly controlled were coordinating all their terrorist activities.
A conference on Thursday, which included the French foreign minister and colleagues from different African countries, is trying to find ways to improve the security in the region through cooperation and address the borders that are very porous, especially Libya’s.
Since Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown in 2011, security in Libya has broken down with drug smugglers and weapons crossing the borders with impunity in the south.
Following France’s intervention earlier this year in Mali, it is believed by many that al-Qaeda elements took refuge across southern Libya by working in smuggling networks.
With them networking with other militant elements, it makes for serious implications on the border security, said ministers at the conference