US places Pantami on terror sponsor watch list

There is disquiet in the land at the weekend following an allegation that the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Alhaji Isa Ali Ibrahim, also known as Sheikh Pantami, has fall­en on the watch list of the America’s Intelligence Service.

Ibrahim, also the Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Sharia Council in Nigeria and a former student of Salafist ideologies, was trained in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East with other top Islamic jihadists.

Before his appointment as a minister, Ibrahim was a known Islamic preacher and held what was termed ‘dangerous views’ against the American government with allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

According to a report, the minister was said to be a very close confidant of the late Mohammed Yusuf, the killed leader of Boko Haram with whom he allegedly shared jihad­ist doctrines.

According to Western Intelligence, the minister had ties with Abu Quata­da al Falasimi and other Al-Qaeda leaders that he revered and spoke glow­ingly of in several of his videos on YouTube.

In one of his narratives, Ibrahim had eulogised Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi as a great leader, who joined Al-Qaeda group after em­igrating to Afghanistan at the end of the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Centre in America.

This is what he wrote about Abu Musab: “Un­der the Osama’s leader­ship, he became the unit commander of army of AlQaeda with the support of the Commander of the loyal Maula Umar (Taliban leader).

-Daily Independent