By Nina Shea

Posted on December 26, 2011 9:53 PM

Boko Haram,  the violent Nigerian Islamist group, whose name means “Western  civilization is forbidden,” struck again yesterday in pitiless bombing  attacks against Christian worshippers as they celebrated Christmas.

One blast targeted congregants as they  left Christmas-morning Mass at the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, a  suburb of Nigeria ’s  capital, Abuja .  The priest said that 35 bodies were recovered and many other people were  wounded as the explosion ripped through the church, leaving a crater.

Smaller bombs were detonated near two  other churches, including the popular Mountain   of Fire and Miracles   Church in Jos, Plateau   State , where a police guard was  killed, and a church in the northeastern area of Gadaka, Yobe State ,  where no deaths were reported. An estimated total of 40 persons lost their  lives in yesterday’s violence.

Coordinated violence targeting Christians  has become a hallmark of Boko Haram as it seeks to impose strict sharia in  areas that are already governed by varying degrees of sharia. Six churches  were targeted and at least 150 people were killed in its bombing attacks over  several days in November, and half a dozen bombs went off near churches and  in a Jos market on Christmas Eve 2010, killing about 30.

Boko Haram has thus engaged in repeated,  demonstrable, and violent intolerance toward Christianity, though it is far  from the only source of religious violence in Nigeria — on the tribal  and village levels, Christians have also attacked Muslims — or even the  only source of Nigerian Muslim violence (for example, on Christmas Day 2009,  the Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, known as the underwear bomber,  attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight headed for Detroit on behalf  of al-Qaeda.) Boko Haram’s targeting of Christians was noted by the  U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in its annual report   for 2010.

But apparently this pattern had escaped  the notice of the New York Times,  which, in its otherwise detailed coverage  of yesterday’s church violence, concluded that the bombings represented  “a new, religion-tinged front” and “another dangerous shift  in strategy.” At least the Times  has finally seen the light.

In a reprise of the  administration’s statement of condolences a year ago when a Syriac  Catholic church in Iraq   was bombed during Mass, the White House press office failed to make any  observation whatsoever about the religious character of yesterday’s  violence in Nigeria .  Its statement identified neither the victims nor the perpetrators other than  to say that they were Nigerian, and omitted any mention of the churches that  were the main sites of the bombings. It attributed the violence simply to “terrorist  acts,” stating in its entirety: “We condemn this senseless  violence and tragic loss of life on Christmas Day. We offer our sincere  condolences to the Nigerian people and especially those who lost family and  loved ones. We have been in contact with Nigerian officials about what  initially appear to be terrorist acts and pledge to assist them in bringing  those responsible to justice.”

Nigeria is Africa ’s  most populated country, a regional power, a significant oil exporter, and an  ally. It is critical for both humanitarian and strategic reasons that its  society, which is almost evenly split between Muslims and Christians, not  enter a period of escalating religious violence. However, it is unlikely that  America   will be able to contribute constructively if our foreign-policy establishment  fails to recognize the goals of radical Sunni Islamist movements there.

―  Nina Shea is the director of the Hudson Institute’s  Center for Religious Freedom and co-author, with Paul Marshall, ofSilenced: How Apostasy &  Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide ( Oxford    University Press,  2011).