CAIRO: Yemen has charged two Nigerian citizens with collecting funds from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen in order to return to Nigeria to train suspected militants, a court in Yemen said. The charges, filed on Thursday evening, charged that the two men from Lagos were members of the group and had already collected some $6,200 for the alleged trainings. If convicted, it would be the first some evidence that link Nigerian groups with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, after observers have long argued there are connections between the two. According to Reuters news agency, Yemeni security sources argue that the militant Islamist sect Boko Haram, which launched an uprising in the Nigeria's largely Muslim north in 2009, has ties with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), sending a few dozen fighters to Mali for training. Boko Haram has been responsible for numerous bombings in Nigeria and attacks against Christians, including the Christmas Day bombing last year that killed dozens of worshipers.
