Bombs, gunfire kill 81 at crowded mosque in Nigeria's Kano

Bombs, gunfire kill 81 at crowded mosque in Nigeria's Kano Fri, Nov 28 16:53 PM EST image 1 of 7 By Nnekule Ikemfuna KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen set off three bombs and opened fire on worshippers at the main mosque in north Nigeria's biggest city Kano on Friday, killing at least 81 people, witnesses and officials said, in an attack that bore the hallmarks of Islamist Boko Haram militants. Blasts from the coordinated assault rang out as scores of people packed into the ancient building's courtyard for afternoon prayers. "These people have bombed the mosque. I am face to face with people screaming," said local reporter Chijjani Usman. The mosque is next to the palace of the emir of Kano, the second highest Islamic authority in Africa's most populous country and a vocal critic of Boko Haram. The emir, former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi, was not present. Boko Haram, a Sunni jihadist movement which is fighting to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria, regards the traditional Islamic religious authorities in Nigeria with disdain. It has attacked mosques that do not follow its radical ideology in a bloody near six-year campaign that has also targeted churches, schools, police stations, military bases and government buildings. "After multiple explosions, they also opened fire. I cannot tell you the casualties because we all ran away," a member of staff at the palace told Reuters on Friday. After the attacks, angry youths blocked the mosque's gates to police, who had to force their way in with tear gas. Reuters visited two mortuaries, one with 20 bodies from the attack, the other with 61, according to medical officer Muhammad Ali. The victims had blast and gunshot wounds, he said. President Goodluck Jonathan said in statement that he would "not to leave any stone unturned until all agents of terror undermining the right of every citizen to life and dignity are tracked down and brought to justice." A MILLION DISPLACED The old mosque and palace date back centuries to when Kano was one of several Islamic empires thriving off trade in gold, ivory and spices from caravan routes connecting Africa's interior with its Mediterranean coast -- glory days of Saharan Islam that Boko Haram says it wants to recreate. Islamic leaders sometimes shy away from direct criticism of Boko Haram for fear of reprisals, but Kano's emir Sanusi, angered by atrocities such as the kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok in April, has become an increasingly vocal Boko Haram critic. He was quoted in the local press as calling on Nigerians this month to defend themselves against Boko Haram. During a broadcast recitation of the Koran he was reported to have said: "These people, when they attack towns, they kill boys and enslave girls. People must stand resolute ... They should acquire what they can to defend themselves. People must not wait for soldiers to protect them." The insurgency has forced more than one million people to flee during its campaign focused on Nigeria's northeast, the Red Cross told reporters on Friday, an increase on a September U.N. refugee agency estimate of 700,000. Persistent insecurity is dogging President Jonathan's campaign for re-election to a second term in February 2015. He has asked parliament for approval to extend an 18-month-old state of emergency in the northeast. (Additional reporting by Julia Payne, Isaac Abrak and Abraham Terngu in Abuja; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Suicide bombs kill 11 at military church in Nigeria

Sun, Nov 25 10:44 AM EST By Garba Mohammed and Isaac Abrak KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Two suicide bombs killed at least 11 people on Sunday at a church in a barracks in northern Nigeria, where the Islamist sect Boko Haram is waging a campaign of violence, the military said. Army spokesman Bola Koleoso said a bus drove into the side of the St. Andrew Military Protestant Church at the Jaji barracks in Kaduna state and exploded at around 1105 GMT, five minutes after a service had started. Explosives inside a Toyota Camry were detonated outside the church ten minutes later, he said. The military said at least 30 were injured. A military source who witnessed the attack said the second bomb was the most deadly, killing people who went to help the injured from the first blast. Witnesses said the barracks was cordoned off and ambulances carried the wounded to hospital. There was no claim of responsibility but Islamist sect Boko Haram has frequently attacked the security forces and Christian churches in its fight to create an Islamic state in Nigeria, where the 160 million population is evenly split between Christians and Muslims. A suicide bomber killed eight people and injured more than 100 last month at a church in another part of Kaduna state, which has a mixed Muslim and Christian population and often suffers from sectarian tensions. CHURCH ATTACKS A bomb attack in a church in Kaduna state in June triggered a week of tit-for-tat violence that killed at least 90 people. Gunmen killed six people in a village in northern Kaduna state earlier this month. The area was at the heart of post-election violence in April last year that left hundreds dead and thousands displaced. Boko Haram's purported spokesman Abu Qaqa, who used to confirm the sect's attacks in phone calls to journalists, was killed by the military in September, the army said. Since then there has been little public communication by the group. Nigeria's army on Saturday offered 290 million naira ($1.8 million) for information leading to the capture of 19 leading members of Boko Haram, including 50 million naira for the sect's self-proclaimed leader Abubakar Shekau. At least 2,800 people have died in fighting since Boko Haram's insurrection began in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch. Most in the northeast of the country, where the sect usually attacks politicians and security forces. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Nigeria with the Archbishop of Canterbury-designate Justin Welby last week to launch a program by Blair's foundation to reconcile religious differences in Africa's most populous nation. The foundation said it was at consultancy stage and gave no details on how much would be spent or who would benefit. (Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Nigerian Christmas bomb death toll rises to 150

30 Dec 2011 21:01 Source: Reuters // Reuters * Boko Haram is Nigeria's top security headache * Church bombs may be aimed at igniting sectarian conflict * President Jonathan pledges to fight group (Adds Jonathan statement, violence in Maiduguri) ABUJA, Dec 30 (Reuters) - The death toll from a bomb attack on a church just outside Nigeria's capital Abuja on Christmas Day has risen to 37, with 57 people wounded, a source at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Friday. The bombing at St. Theresa's Catholic church in Madalla on Abuja's outskirts during a packed Christmas mass was the deadliest of a series of Christmas attacks on Nigerian churches and other targets by the militant Islamist sect Boko Haram. "As of just now, the latest death toll from the bombing of St. Theresa's church is at 37. Wounded, we have 57," a senior NEMA official said. The initial death toll had been 27. The official asked not to be identified because the victims were now in the hands of hospitals and morgues. President Goodluck Jonathan's office put out a statement late on Friday pledging that "the government will fight Boko Haram, the group of evil-minded people who want to cause anarchy, to the end". Jonathan held talks on Friday with Mohame Bazoum, Deputy Prime Minister of Niger. Security officials suspect the countries' porous common border is a gathering point for militants, and that Boko Haram may have made contact there with al Qaeda's north African wing. "The perpetrators pass through borders at will and we have to ensure that there are no safe havens for them in the sub-region," Jonathan said. He had summoned his security chiefs for an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the growing Islamist militant threat and how to deal with it. National Security Adviser General Owoye Andrew Azazi told Reuters that Nigerian security services were considering making contact with moderate members of Boko Haram via "back channels", even though explicit talks are officially ruled out. EXPLOSIONS, SHOOTINGS IN NORTHEAST This year was the second in a row that Boko Haram has attacked churches at Christmas. Its strikes are becoming deadlier and more sophisticated, and suggest that it is trying to ignite sectarian strife in a country historically prone to conflicts between a largely Muslim north and Christian south. Three explosions struck the northeastern city of Maiduguri shortly after Muslim Friday prayers, but caused no casualties, the military said. In a separate incident, gunmen shot dead three members of a cleric's family. Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, has been blamed for a campaign of shootings and bombings against security forces and authorities in the north. Attacks in and around the capital - including one on the U.N. headquarters in August that killed at least 24 people - suggest the group is trying to raise its profile and radiate out from its heartland in the northeast. On Tuesday night, unidentified attackers threw a homemade bomb into an Islamic school in the southern Delta state, an apparent sectarian reprisal that wounded seven people, six of them young children. On Wednesday night, an explosion in a local bar in the northern city of Gombe wounded one person, police said. (Reporting by Tim Cocks; Editing by xxx) ==================== At least 120 killed in northern Nigeria attacks: Red Cross English.news.cn 2012-01-22 00:16:53 KANO, Nigeria Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from Friday's coordinated attacks in northern Nigeria's Kano State has risen to 120, a competent source with the Red Cross told Xinhua on Saturday. According to the Red Cross official, the figure was recorded from the affected areas, noting that 52 persons were injured. State secretary for the organization Musa Abdulahi told Xinhua on phone that they picked corpses around the affected areas. The northwest cordinator for the National Emergency Management Agency ( NEMA) responsible for disaster and emergency management in Nigeria Musa told Xinhua that it is working with some government agencies to collate the actual casualty figure. "We moved round the streets of Kano and picked several bodies and moved them to hospitals around the state," he said. Corpse were taken to the Murtala General Hospital and the Aminu Kano Specialist Hospital, Musa added. Meanwhile, hundreds of Nigerian troops have been deployed to major streets in northern Kano to enhance security following the multiple explosions in the city on Friday. The state government on Friday imposed 24-hour curfew on the state as part of measures to forestall further attacks. Armed soldiers had also been drafted to some strategic public and private buildings in the metropolis to prevent possible attacks. The soldiers were on alert in their vehicles patrolling the major streets of the metropolis in readiness for any eventuality. A Xinhua reporter in the state said security had also been tightened around the government House area as motorists coming to the area were being subjected to thorough checks. All the major roads in Kano have been deserted while residents have remained indoors in compliance with the curfew, he added. Spokesperson for the Boko Haram troops Abul Qaqa told reporters that the attacks were in response to the refusal of the Kano state government to release some fellow terrorists arrested in the state. He said they were forced to resort to the attacks after an open letter sent in 2011 to prominent people in the state were ignored. Several persons were feared dead and many others sustained serious injuries following coordinated attacks on police and other security agency formations in Kano on Friday. The attacks are believed to be the handiwork of members of the dreaded Boko Haram sect. Places affected include Zone A Headquarters of the Nigeria Police, as well as Yar'akwa, Sharada and Farm Center Police divisions in Kano metropolis. Zonal police spokesperson Aminu Gusau told reporters that a similar attack was carried out at the state command of the State Security Service (SSS) and the passport office of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS). At the police office, a suicide bomber crashed a car into the premises and detonated the bomb. The suicide bomber died instantly. According to the Police Public Relations Officer, two policemen also died in the attack. However, at the SSS office when another suicide bomber entered the gate, operatives on duty opened fire on him before he detonated the bomb and he also died on the spot. Series of explosions were heard near the state police command more than two hour after the initial coordinated attacks. The explosions took place simultaneously in all the affected places. Editor: Mu Xuequan =============================

More than 800 killed in Nigeria clashes -Red Cross

02 Aug 2009 12:01:43 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Search for bodies continues, death toll could rise

* Authorities hope leader's death has ended uprising

* Residents return to streets

(Adds Red Cross comment)

By Ibrahim Mshelizza

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Aug 2 (Reuters) - More than 700 people were killed during a five-day uprising by a radical Islamic sect in northern Nigeria and the search for bodies is continuing, Red Cross and defence officials said on Sunday.

Gunbattles raged for days last week as the security forces fought to put down the uprising by members of Boko Haram, a militant movement which wants sharia (Islamic law) to be imposed more widely in Africa's most populous nation.

Violence flared in several states but Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state where sect leader Mohammed Yusuf had his base, saw the heaviest fighting.

"From our findings, the toll is 780 so far ... A joint operation team has been tasked to search for remaining dead bodies all over the town," Aliiyu Maikano, northeastern disaster management officer for the Nigerian Red Cross, told Reuters.

State government and Health Ministry workers have been piling corpses, some swollen after lying in the streets for days, onto open trucks.

"Over 700 dead bodies were given mass burial in Maiduguri town alone. Most of the bodies were buried in Yusuf's compound that used to be their headquarters," a senior defence official in the capital Abuja told Reuters.

The troubles began last Sunday in Bauchi state, some 400 km (250 miles) southwest of Maiduguri, when members of the group -- loosely modelled on the Taliban in Afghanistan -- were arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station.

Boko Haram followers, armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs, then went on the rampage in several cities. Maiduguri, where sect leader Mohammed Yusuf had his base, saw the heaviest fighting.

Yusuf, 39, was shot in police detention in Maiduguri on Thursday and the authorities are hoping his killing will bring an end to the uprising.

Hundreds of people gathered on Friday to see Yusuf's corpse, laid on the ground in front of Maiduguri police headquarters alongside the bodies of other presumed Boko Haram members.

Officials have said Yusuf died while trying to escape but human rights groups have condemned what they said looked like an execution-style killing.

Residents ventured back onto the streets on Saturday, banks reopened and soldiers began to withdraw their roadblocks. But the authorities have said house to house searches for Yusuf's followers will continue.

Boko Haram's views are not espoused by the majority of Nigeria's Muslim population, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. The Muslim umbrella group Jama'atu Nasril Islam has condemned the uprising and voiced support for the security forces. (Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja; writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Tim Pearce)




===============



Nigeria deports 700 immigrants in sect crackdown
04 Nov 2010 15:35:06 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Immigrants from Niger, Cameroon, Chad

* Security tightened after spate of recent attacks

By Ibrahim Mshelizza

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Hundreds of immigrants have been deported from northern Nigeria back to neighbouring countries as part of a security crackdown on a radical Islamic sect, a senior immigration official said on Thursday.

Suspected members of the Boko Haram sect have been blamed for torching police stations and carrying out fatal sniper attacks on police officers and local officials in the remote northeast of Africa's most populous country.

Around 700 migrants from Niger, Cameroon and Chad have been expelled amid fears the sect may be drawing members from outside Nigeria, said Babayo Alkali, the top immigration official in Maiduguri, capital of the northeastern state of Borno.

"With the recent security threat in the state and approaching election, we had to embark on an exercise to clear the state of all illegal aliens," Alkali said.

"Some foreigners were implicated in the Boko Haram security breach so we had to act," he said.

Alkali said those deported, some of whom said they were visiting relatives, had been found to lack the necessary paperwork to stay in Nigeria. He did not say whether they had been found to have any links with Boko Haram.

Boko Haram is calling for sharia (Islamic law) to be implemented across Nigeria, a country of 140 million people that is roughly divided into a mostly Christian south and largely Muslim north. A dozen northern states have introduced the religious code over the last decade.

The sect first gained wide attention last July, when it launched an uprising in Maiduguri that led to clashes with security forces in which up to 800 people were killed.

RETALIATION

Some northern Nigerians say the recent resurgence in violence is a form of revenge against the authorities. Police officers, government officials and traditional leaders have been killed in a wave of attacks that began in August.

Nigeria is due to hold a fiercely contested presidential election within the next six months and security concerns are high. Some northern factions within the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) are opposed to the candidacy of President Goodluck Jonathan, who is a southern Christian.

The dusty and impoverished north is not the only area of concern.

There are also fears that an amnesty for rebel groups in the oil-producing Niger Delta, hundreds of kilometres away on the country's southern coast, is starting to fray.

The amnesty has brought more than a year of relative peace in a region where militants had for years attacked oil facilities and kidnapped Nigerian and foreign employees of firms including Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil .

A bomb attack in the capital Abuja on Oct. 1, which killed at least 10 people, was claimed by rebels from the region, home to sub-Saharan Africa's largest oil and gas reserves.

The security services said last month they would boost the army and police presence, including using helicopter patrols, in Borno in a bid to contain Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the local Hausa language. (For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://af.reuters.com/ ) (Writing by Shyamantha Asokan; Editing by Nick Tattersall)


=======

Islamic sect claims Nigeria attacks, toll at 8628 Dec 2010

Source: reuters // Abdulwahab Muhammed


A man mourns at a mass grave for the victims of religious riots, in Nigeria's central city of Jos, December 27, 2010. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

* Boko Haram claims bomb, church attacks

* Christmas Eve bombings, ensuing attacks kill at least 86

* Two arrested with dynamite, weapons

BAUCHI, Nigeria, Dec 28 (Reuters) - A radical Islamist sect said on Tuesday it was behind bombings in central Nigeria and attacks on churches in the northeast of the country that led to the deaths of at least 86 people.

The police said on Tuesday that 80 people were killed in Christmas Eve bomb attacks and clashes two days later between Muslim and Christian youths in central Nigeria, while more than 100 are wounded in hospitals.

"We have recovered 80 dead bodies so far in Jos," Daniel Gambo, an official at the Nigerian emergency management agency said late on Monday.

In a separate incident, six people were killed when petrol bombs were thrown late on Friday at churches in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, in Borno state.

"O Nations of the World, be assured that the attacks in Suldaniyya (Jos) and Borno on the eve of Christmas were carried out by us Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awatu Wal Jihad, under the leadership of Abu Muhammad, Abubakar bin Muhammad Shekau," a statement said on the group's website.

The radical Islamic group Boko Haram has previously used the name Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awatu Wal Jihad.

President Goodluck Jonathan has pledged to hunt down those responsible for the bombings but the government has not said who it believes was behind the attacks.

A government spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the claim.



BOKO HARAM

Boko Haram, which wants Islamic sharia law more widely applied across Africa's most populous nation, staged an uprising in Maiduguri last year which led to clashes with security forces in which as many as 800 people were killed.

The chief of defence staff said two suspects had been arrested on Monday in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in possession of dynamite and dangerous weapons.

Armed police patrolled the streets in Jos and surrounding areas on Tuesday to deter further unrest.

Religious violence flares up sporadically in the central "Middle Belt" of Africa's most populous nation, where the largely Muslim north meets the mostly Christian south.

But co-ordinated bomb attacks have not usually featured in previous violence and the governor of Plateau state has said the attacks were politically motivated.

(Additional reporting by Joe Brock, Shuaibu Mohammed and Felix Onuah; writing by Joe Brock; editing by Angus MacSwan)


====

Blast kills 30 in Nigerian capitalSat Jan 1, 2011 12:40AM
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A woman who lost a relative in a bombing (center) mourns at the Asokoro General Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria on Friday, December 31, 2010. A bombing in the Nigerian capital Abuja has killed at least 30 people and injured several more at a market inside a military barracks.


Police say the blast occurred at the Sani Abacha barracks, where people had gathered to celebrate New Year's Eve on Friday night. Local journalists say injured people are being carried away from the scene.

"There was a bomb blast inside the Mammy market. The bomb exploded where people were eating and drinking," the civil defense corps chief for the capital, Rabi Saidu, told reporters.

According to police spokesman Moshood Jimoh, a report that a second bombing targeted a church in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, was a false alarm.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the country's security agencies to apprehend the perpetrators of the attack.

Nigeria's military chief, Air Marshal Oluseyi Petirin, said, "It's unfortunate that some people planted a bomb where people were relaxing."

The cause of the explosion is not yet known, and no more details are available.

A week ago, multiple bomb attacks were committed by unknown assailants in the central city of Jos and the northeastern city of Maiduguri.


=================


Sect attacks leaves 150 dead in Nigeria
November 6, 2011 - 10:26AM
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At least 150 people died in a "heinous" wave of gun and bomb attacks in northern Nigeria carried out by the Islamist Boko Haram sect.

President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the assaults, which officials said included at least five suicide bomb blasts and "directed security agencies to ensure the arrest of perpetrators of these heinous acts", a statement from his spokesman, Reuben Abati, said.

As corpses piled up in the morgue, a rescue agency official said the body count stood at 150.

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"I was involved in the evacuation of corpses to the morgue. I personally counted 150 bodies," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at the hospital.

He said some families had already collected their loved ones for burial, reducing the number to 97 by end of the day.

An AFP reporter counted 97 corpses still in the mortuary.

The Red Cross earlier said the death toll stood at 63, while police spoke of 53, of whom 11 were members of its force.

A member of Nigeria's Islamist Boko Haram sect yesterday claimed responsibility.

Spokesman Abul Qaqa said: "We are responsible for the attack in [north-eastern] Borno [state] and Damaturu.

"We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop persecuting our members and vulnerable civilians."

The bomb and gun attacks, targeted police stations, an army base and churches in the cities of Damaturu, Maiduguri and two other small towns.

The military deployed to curb the violence in Maiduguri said there were four suicide bomb attacks in parts of the city, including an army base and on the outskirts of Maiduguri.

The attackers bombed their targets then took on the security forces in gun battles in Damaturu.

Local police chief Suleimon Lawal said: "It was a suicide bomb attack at one of our buildings. The attacker came in a Honda CRV and rammed into the building and explosives exploded."

An AFP reporter said no office was still standing at the police HQ which was still smouldering some 24 hours after the attack. Three burnt cars lay in front of the building.

Police have been placed on red alert nationwide.

Militants from Boko Haram, whose name means "Western Education Is Sin" in the regional Hausa language, have in the past targeted police and military, community and religious leaders, as well as politicians.

The sect, which wants to see the establishment of an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, staged an uprising which was brutally put down by security forces in 2009.

Nigeria's more than 160 million people are divided almost in half between Muslims and Christians, living roughly in the north and south of the country respectively. Regions where they overlap are prey to frequent tensions.

AFP



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/sect-attacks-leaves-150-dead-in-nigeria-20111106-1n1o7.html#ixzz1ctOYZyHg

=============== INTERVIEW-Ex-warlord warns of S.Nigeria backlash at Boko Haram 02 Jan 2012 19:40 Source: Reuters // Reuters * Niger Delta militant says talks with Islamists impossible * Warns of a southern uprising against northern insurgency By Austin Ekeinde PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Southern Nigerians could take up arms to fight northern Boko Haram Islamists, and are holding back only out of respect for the president, a former militant leader from the oil-rich Niger Delta said on Monday. Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a Muslim who led a rebellion in the delta until a peace deal with the government in 2004, said bomb attacks by Boko Haram could provoke retaliation by mostly Christian southerners, including those living in the delta. President Goodluck Jonathan has already declared a state of emergency in parts of the north which Boko Haram targeted in Christmas Day bomb attacks, including one against a church near Abuja that killed 37 people. The attacks, and their spread from the north into other parts of the country, have raised the prospect of sectarian and regional violence escalating in a country about evenly divided between mainly southern Christians and mainly northern Muslims. Asked if northerners could be targeted by some from the majority Christian south, he replied: "It is seconds away ... Nigeria is on the precipice of a civil war." "For Niger Delta people to take up arms is just a minute away. It's just Goodluck that is holding us back," said Asari, who is from Jonathan's southern, mainly Christian Ijaw tribe, but who converted to Islam. "We have all reached the extreme. There is nothing anybody can do about it except we fight." Asari's former group, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, managed to push oil prices to record highs in 2004 with its constant attacks and threats against oil production in the delta's swampy creeks. Since then, peace deals with the region's warlords have pacified the delta, and Boko Haram in the north has become the number one threat to Nigeria's security. Full-bearded, shaven-headed, and wearing an ash-coloured Islamic robe, Asari paused to read some Facebook posts from his iPad about the Christmas Day bombs. Asari said he was sceptical that the government could negotiate with moderate members of Boko Haram via "back channels" as National Security Adviser General Owoye Andrew Azazi suggested in an interview with Reuters. Sitting in his large flat in the southeastern city of Port Harcourt, Asari said the group's faceless nature, an issue General Azazi acknowledged, made talks impossible. "If you cannot identify the people who are carrying out these attacks, how can you dialogue with them, interact with them, and bring them round the table?" he said. In any case, such extreme violence meant the time for talks had passed, he said. "You cannot ask government to negotiate now. On what basis? The government should...rein these people in, or the people will resort to self-help," said Asari, who stressed where his loyalties lay despite being a Muslim. "Anybody that wants to start any revolution in Goodluck's time, we the Ijaw will pull down that revolution," he said. (Writing by Tim Cocks) =======================

Forty-two dead as sect, police clash in Nigeria

by Aminu Abubakar Aminu Abubakar – 9 mins ago

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – Forty-two people were killed Sunday in clashes between police and members of a radical Islamic sect in Nigeria that is inspired by the Taliban in Afghanistan, a hospital source said.

"We have received a total of 42 bodies," Awwal Isa, a nurse at Bauchi Specialist Hospital in the northern city of Bauchi where the violence took place, told AFP by telephone.

They were victims of "fighting between security personnel and members of the Taliban," he said, alluding to the sect founded in Nigeria in 2004 with a mission to set up a strict Islamic state in Nigeria.

The two sides exchanged gunfire after a failed dawn attack on a police station in the neighbourhood of Dutsen Tenshin.

"Our men succeeded in repelling the dawn attack by the Taliban and killed five members of the group in the exchange of gunfire," Bauchi police spokesman Mohammed Barau told AFP by telephone.

"We have launched a manhunt for other members of the group that have fled," Barau added.

Local journalists who went to Bauchi Specialist Hospital told AFP earlier on Sunday they had counted nine bodies there -- six Taliban militants and three local inhabitants.

Isa said that, initially, the hospital received nine bodies, followed by another 33. He added that one of the dead was a soldier, the rest were members of the Taliban sect.

Police have so far declined to give a total death toll from the gun battle, which according to the hospital figures would amount to the biggest number of casualties the Taliban sect has suffered in clashes with Nigerian authorities. The Nigerian Taliban debuted in 2004 when it set up a base -- dubbed Afghanistan -- in Kanamma village in northern Yobe state, on the border with Niger, from where it attacked police outposts and killed police officers.

Its membership is mainly drawn from university dropouts.

The north of Nigeria is majority Muslim, although large Christian minorities have settled in the main towns, raising tensions between the two groups.

Since 1999 and the return of a civilian regime to Nigeria's central government, 12 northern states have introduced Islamic Sharia law.

Religious clashes between Muslims and Christians in Bauchi state killed five people in February.

A Muslim mob went on the rampage, attacking Christians and burning churches in reprisals over the burning of two mosques, which Muslims blamed on Christians, they said.

More than 700 people died last November in Jos, capital of Plateau state, when a political feud over a local election degenerated into bloody confrontation between Muslims and Christians.

One of the Nigerian Taliban leaders, Aminu Tashen-Ilimi, told AFP in a 2005 interview that the group intended to lead an armed insurrection and rid society of "immorality" and "infidelity."

----------------



Q+A-Who are the Islamic sect in northern Nigeria?
31 Jul 2009 07:13:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Nick Tattersall

LAGOS, July 31 (Reuters) - The leader of a radical Islamic sect in northern Nigeria was shot dead in police custody late on Thursday after days of clashes between his followers and the security forces killed hundreds of people.

Militant preacher Mohammed Yusuf, whose Boko Haram sect wants a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law) across Africa's most populous nation, was captured after a manhunt involving military helicopters, soldiers and armed police.

The violence first erupted on Sunday in Bauchi state after some members of the group were arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station.

For the latest story, click on [nLV406672]

Following are questions and answers on who the group are, what they want, and whether their ideology is widely followed.

WHO OR WHAT IS BOKO HARAM?

Sometimes referred to as the "Nigerian Taliban", the group's members are followers of a self-proclaimed Islamic scholar, Mohammed Yusuf, who was radically opposed to Western education and wants sharia (Islamic law) to be adopted across Nigeria.

Based in Maiduguri, capital of the northeastern state of Borno, his followers include former university lecturers and students in other northern states including Kano, Yobe, Sokoto and Bauchi, as well as illiterate, jobless youths.

Boko Haram means "Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language spoken across northern Nigeria and sums up the main pillar of the group's ideology. Some of its members resigned their jobs as lecturers when they joined the sect.

Yusuf himself, who was born in 1970, had 4 wives and 12 children. He had considerable private wealth and received a Western-style education, but his followers -- who come from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the predominantly Muslim north -- say he was also educated in Iran.

Boko Haram followers pray in separate mosques in cities including Maiduguri, Kano and Sokoto, and wear long beards and red or black headscarves.

They believe their wives should not be seen by any men other than themselves and are not supposed to use Western-made goods.

Anybody who does not follow their strict ideology -- whether Christian or Muslim -- is considered an infidel.

WHY DID THE VIOLENCE ERUPT?

President Umaru Yar'Adua has said the security agencies had been tracking the sect for several years, describing them as a "potentially dangerous group" who have been gathering weapons and intelligence to try to force their views on Nigerians.

Violence broke out in Bauchi state on Sunday when some members of the group were arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station. Unrest quickly spread to other cities across northern Nigeria.

Yar'Adua ordered the security forces to use all necessary means to control the situation after sect members armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs went on the rampage attacking churches and government buildings.

IS THERE A HISTORY OF SECTARIAN VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA?

Africa's most populous nation is roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims and more than 200 ethnic groups generally live peacefully side by side, although civil war left one million dead between 1967 and 1970.

The stricter enforcement of sharia in 12 of Nigeria's 36 states in 2000 alienated sizeable Christian minorities in the north and sparked clashes which killed thousands.

In 2002 at least 215 people died in rioting in the northern city of Kaduna following a newspaper article suggesting the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married one of the beauty queens at a Miss World contest being held in Abuja.

A Muslim protest against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in the northern city of Maiduguri ran out of control in 2006, sparking a week of rioting which killed at least 157.

There have also been clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs in central Nigeria, a region known as the Middle Belt, most recently last November in the wake of a disputed local government chairmanship election, although the hostilities were more about politics than religion.

DOES RADICAL ISLAM HAVE A FOOTHOLD IN WEST AFRICA?

West Africa has a strong tradition of moderate Sufi Islam whose brotherhoods are renowned for their tolerance, particularly in the Sahel -- the southern fringe of the Sahara desert stretching across the northern edge of Nigeria.

Salafist insurgents from Algeria, Tablighi clerics from Pakistan and Wahabist missionaries from Saudi Arabia -- all seen as potential threats by Western intelligence services -- have tried to gain a foothold in the region in recent years.

By and large they have failed.

Islamic jurisprudence in Nigeria is based on the moderate Maliki school of Sunni Islam, and Boko Haram's ideology is widely dismissed by the country's Muslim leaders and believers.

The main militant threat in the Sahara is seen as al Qaeda's North African wing, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which grew out of Algeria's civil war in the 1990s and was formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Nigeria arrested a group of Islamists with suspected links to al Qaeda in 2007 and some Western diplomats have expressed concerns that -- with its huge population, widespread poverty and strategic importance as an oil supplier to the West and to China -- it could become a target for radical Islamic groups.

Boko Haram's apparently chaotic tactics have little in common with those of Islamic militant groups elsewhere and no conclusive evidence of al Qaeda's presence in Nigeria or of links to the Taliban in Afghanistan has been made public.

(For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://af.reuters.com/ ) (Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mshelizza in Maiduguri, Faruku Umar in Sokoto, Ardo Hazzad in Bauchi)