Kooky regional militant group Boko Haram — loosely translated as “Western ideas are forbidden” — once eschewed all modern “Western” technology in their campaigns to get locals to adhere to Sharia. But in the two years since the bow-and-arrow-weilding group’s leader was killed in a government massacre along with over one hundred followers, Boko Haram has discovered the wonders of the gun and the bomb. A recent escalation of violence culminated in the bombing of UN headquarters in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, killing 18.

Nigeria’s government is now trying to negotiate, and may feel especially pressured after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime left tens of thousands of surface-to-air missiles missing in Libya. The arms are said to have made their way into Gaza and could be what the Afghan Taliban claims as it’s “new weapon” against NATO troops. Algeria has slammed its own borders shut to keep the weapons out. Given the ease with which Gadhafi loyalists have slipped into Niger, there’s no reason to think the weapons won’t end up in the much closer and far less controlled Sahel region of Africa, just over the shifting sands of the Sahara from Libya.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a regional militant group, operates in several Sahel countries including Mali, Mauritania, Chad, and Niger, and could have ties to factions of Libya’s transitional council. AQIM has endorsed Boko Haram and could conceivably help the group in the future. “AQIM is flush with ransom money, and they’re the most likely to buy” Gadhafi’s weapons, Mauritanian Naser Weddady of the American Islamic Congress told Time.

The Sahel is a swamp of human desperation, crushed by anti-liberal tyrants, ripe for revolt and overthrow — a flood of weapons could spark a Sub-Saharan Spring or, as the West fears, the rise of unaligned militant groups. As it is, AQIM routinely beats Mauritanian forces in dust-ups, and takes pot-shots at Algerian forces. It has a wink-and-nod deal with Mali, which agreed to leave it alone if the group refrained from attacks in the country.

As in Libya, France might take the lead in pushing for military action in its former colonies — nothing new there — and Nigeria, where the US is already involved in an investigation of the Abuja bombing. Will NATO, and therefore the US, be taken in on another “kinetic” front against a nebulous militant Islamist ideology?

Time will tell, but tensions could escalate this week — Boko Haram has declared it will bomb 18 universities by Sept. 18th.

Zawahiri also said he wished his fighters could join the Syrian uprising, but that “the ongoing war between the United States and its allies against al-Qaeda” prevented them from doing so. He urged the protesters not to replace Assad with a pro-US regime.

Despite US claims of a cushy relationship between Assad and al-Qaeda, it is clear that the militants would ideologically prefer a Sunni-dominated government to the Ba’athist regime, and indeed the US and Israel have traditionally accepted Assad’s rule primarily over fear that a free Syria would be more united and less willing to tolerate things like the ongoing occupation of Golan.

But Zawahiri’s backing of the demonstrators, much like the Obama Administration’s decision, is unlikely to be a pure expression of ideology so much as a realization that the Assad regime is weakening, and that whoever backs the protesters may stand to score points with a new government if and when they take over.

It turns out they couldn’t ensure the weapons were reaching only the rebels. Speaking today Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel complained that the French-dropped weapons are already showing up across the region in the hands of the al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

AQIM, whose operations span much of northwest Africa, seem to be capitalizing well on the civil war in Libya, using the free flow of weapons in the country and the number of defecting army officials with weapons to sell as a chance to upgrade their own arsenals.

Which would be unsurprising if France had noticed the American example, where the Obama Administration shipped literally “tons” of arms into Somalia and within weeks those arms were being openly hawked in weapons bazaars and wielded by the militant factions the US was nominally arming the regime against. In such warzones the attempts to arm one faction at the expense of others inevitably fails, with the weapons finding their way into the hands of virtually every combatant and only serving to escalate the fight.

All told 11 of the slain were detainees, and the clashes started during the questioning of Abu Huzaifa al-Batawy, accused of being behind an attack on a Christian church in Baghdad last year. The detainees disarmed the guards at the start of the clash.

Once this happened, the detainees took over a section of the prison and held off guards for hours. The clash only came to an end after Iraqi SWAT team forces arrived and sieged the prison.

Security officials said the situation was under control, and described Batawi as the “Emir of Baghdad” under the AQI umbrella organization. They also said as many as eight other suspects were facing the death penalty.

According to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, the recent operations have netted some 73 suspects, and members of one of the cell claimed to have prior knowledge of the Stockholm bombing, though they only revealed this supposed knowledge after the fact.

Swedish officials said they were unaware of any ties between the suicide bomber and al-Qaeda, let alone AQI in particular, saying Bolani’s claims were the first they’d heard of it. Iraqi officials suggested Denmark might be a potential target but did not specify any other countries.

The US seems to be viewing the threats as credible, which is likely something of an embarrassment after officials railed against Iraq for arresting the AQI suspects without obtaining the permission of the Obama Administration first.

Interestingly enough, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry said al-Qaeda, which had largely been ousted from the kingdom over the past several years, had set up three completely distinct networks inside Saudi Arabia, and that none of them appeared to be aware of the others. Beyond that, they said there were a number of independent cells involved in the sweep.

The vast majority of those detained were said to have been Saudis, though there were 25 foreigners also involved. One woman was also detained. It was unclear how many of the 149 were actually fighters but some of them were said to have been arrested on the basis of postings to pro-militant websites.

Saudi Arabia was once a major target for al-Qaeda, but the group’s presence on the Arabian Peninsula is almost exclusively in the form of the aptly-named al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) group operating in Yemen. It is unclear from official statements if the sweeps were related to AQAP or to the primary al-Qaeda group.

Which doesn’t sound like very many, especially when one considers that the CIA termed AQAP the number one security threat to the United States in August, putting them ahead of the parent al-Qaeda group.

The reports was immediately followed with calls for the US to escalate the number of attacks they launch across Yemen, and a dramatic expansion of the military’s training program inside Yemen.

Can this really all be for 400 guys living in a country of 23+ million people? If so it would certainly explain why Yemen has been so much more eager to fight the separatist factions in the nation’s north and south, as these groups would be far larger. But it doesn’t explain the US fascination with committing ever increasing resources to the group, particularly when their only attempt at an attack, the Christmas Day underbomber, was a failure.

One idea, which the magazine terms “the ultimate mowing machine,” involves welding a bunch of sword blades to the front of a Ford 4×4 truck and then driving it into a conveniently placed crowd of civilians somewhere. The magazine floats the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Israel, and “other countries” as possible places to carry out the attack.

But for those not keen on the whole truck thing, the magazine also suggests that going to a “random” restaurant somewhere in Washington DC and opening fire might also be a good idea. Since neither article has any specific target in mind, it will likely be extremely difficult for officials to try to foil such an attack.

Which is probably part of the point, as the magazine and its founders at the al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) group probably have no intention of telegraphing their actual moves, and are using the magazine not just as a recruitment tool, but as something to scare officials into taking protective action against random ideas they decide to write about.

And while it doesn’t appear that either video has anything to do with it, the releases are being framed as sign of a growing threat centered around the ill-defined “Mumbai-style” terror plot that officials have been on about since yesterday.

The previous Mumbai attack was never tied to al-Qaeda, and officials haven’t gotten any farther with their new “plot,” except for mentions that it might be an “al-Qaeda” linked group of some sort or another.

Gadahn has been a high profile spokesman for the al-Qaeda network for years, and despite numerous occasions when he was reported killed or captured, he has remained at large. Awlaki’s role is much less clear, as despite official allegations he is not charged with any crimes and appears to operate independently, issuing sermons critical of US foreign policy. Awlaki was confirmed added to the president “assassination” list in April, and a current effort is ongoing to see some legal oversight to this planned killing.

Brig. Gen. Higgins says that the increasing lack of foreign funding for the AQI has led the group to launch more kidnappings and take part in extortion schemes, and that some members of the group have in effect because assassins for hire by other groups looking to “outsource” attacks.

Despite claims of progress in Iraq, violence has been rising steadily for several months, and in July the death toll was the highest in over two years. Military officials are now predicting that the violence will increase even further in the weeks ahead.

But the reports about AQI will be particularly embarrassing as President Obama tries to sell his “drawdown” strategy as the virtual end to the war (despite US designs on years of additional fighting in the nation). After all, AQI was not a presence in Iraq before the 2003 US invasion.