Nigeria Police Raid Muslim Sect

Nigerian police have raided an isolated Muslim community in the western state of Niger, taking more than 600 people into custody.

A team of 1,000 officers took part in the Saturday morning raid on the Darul Islam community, local media say.

Police say no weapons were found and there was no resistance to the arrests.

The raid comes in the aftermath of the violent uprising of the Boko Haram Islamist group last month in which hundreds of people died.

A BBC correspondent says the authorities may be taking this opportunity to disperse the Darul Islam (or House of Islam) community.

The settlement was established in the early 1990s to live according to strict Islamic principles, away from what they see as western decadence.

After the recent bloodshed involving Boko Haram in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, Darul Islam came under official scrutiny.

One of the men taken away by the police told the BBC Hausa service they were being questioned at a secondary school in Makwa, the nearest town.

He said: "We have not eaten anything since we were brought here and we have women and children among us."

"It was a team of security officers including policemen and immigration officers, operating under the instruction of the federal police command, who came to our village."

The inclusion of immigration officers is important, according to Mannir Dan-Ali, editor-in-chief of the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust.

"The authorities are trying to establish the identity and nationality of the members of the Darul Islam community," he says.

Mr Dan-Ali says those found not be from Niger state may be asked to return to their home states within Nigeria.

"Although the group have not been found to be engaged in anything against the law, the authorities appear to be keen to take this opportunity to disperse the community," he told the BBC.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8203832.stm

Published: 2009/08/16

Clinton Has Praise and Criticism for Nigeria

by Jeffrey Gettleman

ABUJA, Nigeria — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sent a message of tough love to Nigeria on Wednesday, praising the country’s strong military and showing public appreciation for its huge oil industry, but also harshly criticizing the government for being corrupt.

Mrs. Clinton thanked Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and typically its biggest oil producer, for its help in resolving wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and for providing peacekeepers to Sudan.

“The people in Liberia owe their freedom to you,” she said. “People across Africa owe so much to you.”

But when it came to the topic of corruption — and Nigeria is notoriously corrupt, from top ministers in the government to the plump police officers on the street — Mrs. Clinton took a decidedly different tone.

She told a crowd of civic leaders that the reason so many millions of Nigerians were desperately poor, despite the nation’s having so much oil, was “a failure of government at the federal, state and local level.”

She also spoke of flawed elections and a lack of public trust that has seriously eroded the credibility of the Nigerian government.

“Nigeria is at a crossroads,” she said.

America’s ties to Nigeria are a crucial piece of the reinvigorated relationship that the Obama administration is trying to strike with Africa. It has 150 million people and is the world’s fifth largest supplier of crude oil to the United States. It could supply even more, but heavily armed insurgents in the oil producing areas have hampered drilling operations by blowing up pipelines and kidnapping oil workers, seemingly at will.

There is some hope that this problem, which has been raging for years, may finally be easing. The Nigerian government recently offered an amnesty program to rebel fighters, and despite ample skepticism from experts and the rebels themselves, Nigerian officials said that many combatants had indicated that they were willing to surrender.

“There was a need to be bold and imaginative,” said Nigeria’s foreign minister, Ojo Maduekwe, who met with Mrs. Clinton for more than an hour on Wednesday. “Old methods were not going to be good enough.”

The United States and Nigeria already cooperate closely on military affairs, with many of Nigeria’s top officers having passed through American military academies. Mrs. Clinton said that the Nigerian defense minister asked her on Wednesday for specific American military help to quash the remaining rebels in the oil producing areas, and that the American government would look closely at the request.

Nigeria is the fifth stop on Mrs. Clinton’s 11-day, seven-nation African tour. Next she will go to Liberia and Cape Verde, then head home on Friday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton struck a more conciliatory tone with Nigeria’s leaders. At a news conference with Mr. Maduekwe, she said, “We strongly support and encourage the government of Nigeria’s efforts to increase transparency, reduce corruption” and prepare for a clean national election in 2011, after a deeply flawed one in 2007.

Mrs. Clinton avoided answering a question about the Nigerian government’s recent crackdown on an extremist Islamic group. According to some reports, more than 700 people were killed a few weeks ago, many of them civilians, and the rebel leader was widely believed to have been executed in police custody.

Mrs. Clinton said she did not have enough information to comment on the operation. The group at the heart of the government’s assault — Boko Haram, a Hausa expression meaning “Western education is prohibited” — has no known links to any broader organizations. Still, Mrs. Clinton said that “we have no doubt that Al Qaeda has a presence in North Africa” and that terrorists would “seek a foothold wherever they can.”

For Many, Nigeria's Moderate Form of Sharia Fails to Deliver on Promises

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

KANO, Nigeria -- As military rule ended in Nigeria a decade ago, an Islamic legal system was swept into place on a wave of popular support in the country's desperately poor and mostly Muslim northern states. It has turned out in a way few expected.

The draconian amputation sentences warned of by human rights activists and the religious oppression feared by Christians have mostly not come to pass. But neither has the utopia envisioned by backers of sharia law, who believed politicians' promises that it would end decades of corruption and pillaging by civilian and military rulers. The people are still poor and miserable, residents complain, and politicians are still rich.

How the battles over sharia play out could have effects beyond Nigeria, a nation pivotal to West Africa's stability and viewed by the United States as key to stopping the spread of religious extremism in Africa. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to discuss the issue with Nigerian leaders on a visit to the country this week.

"People want sharia. But not this kind of sharia," said Ahmad Al-Khanawy, 41, a reed-thin filmmaker, adding that the most visible signs of Islamic law are new censorship rules banning dancing and singing in movies made in Kannywood, as this city's film industry is known. Sharia-promoting politicians, he said, "want to cover their failure by making noise about fighting immorality. That is it."

Nigeria's moderate form of sharia may not have delivered a Muslim revolution, but it has fueled a growing disillusionment that analysts say has weakened public faith in democracy -- and could, if unchecked, spark religious militancy. That prospect was highlighted last month when a radical Islamist sect called Boko Haram attacked security forces in northern Nigeria, triggering violence that killed more than 700 people. The group draws its members from the ranks of frustrated youths.

"Political space is so limited . . . that the disenchanted are finding little avenues for achieving change through dialogue and peaceful expression," said Nnamdi Obasi, West Africa analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Reforms Missing Mark

So far, analysts say, extremist groups such as Boko Haram remain small and do not have links to international terrorist organizations. In Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city, many say the bigger short-term danger is that people have begun to view this form of sharia -- and the democracy that brought it -- as just another broken political promise.

Kano remains a sunbaked metropolis where electricity is fitful, child beggars swarm on street corners and goats graze in trash heaps. Many of the region's leaders have been accused of corruption, which plagues Nigeria. Against that backdrop, residents say, sharia reforms such as movie censorship and a ban on women riding motorbike taxis seem like window-dressing.

"Sharia is about justice. Where you have sharia, you have development," said Salisu Saidu, 32, standing amid the leather bags he sells in Kano's labyrinthine market. "Nothing has changed. If one relied on tap water, one would die of thirst. We don't even talk of electricity."

Islam has dominated in this region on the edge of the Sahara for centuries, in a tenuous coexistence with the Christianity that is prevalent in more prosperous southern Nigeria. When Kano and 11 other northern states that had long applied Islamic law to civil cases adopted sharia for criminal matters, clashes broke out between Christians and Muslims. Early on, several sentences of death by stoning for female adulterers -- never carried out -- and the amputation of two men's hands for theft drew international condemnation.

But this version of sharia turned out to be fairly temperate, reflecting local sensibilities and religious law's existence within a secular federal system. The harshest sentences imposed under the new system, which applies only to Muslims, garnered little public support. The efforts to ban women from motorbike taxis sparked protests, so veiled women still zip about Kano with their arms around male drivers. The federal government reined in the sharia police, known as the Hisbah, after they were accused of terrorizing people.

Still, the Hisbah remain active. This year, they thwarted a planned protest by divorced Muslim women. Alongside politicians, they regularly smash bottles of liquor seized from trucks smuggling them into Kano's Christian neighborhood, where bars operate openly despite a state ban on alcohol sales. The Hisbah's actions have rankled Christian leaders.

"To us, sharia is a religious injunction laced around the strings of love, tolerance and respect for human dignity," said Tobias Michael Idika, 48, a Christian community leader, who on a recent day sat in a Kano hotel lobby and read from a letter he had written to local officials to protest the actions.

He looked up and shook his head: "Now we are being used as sacrificial lambs."

No Turning Back

All this has added up to a mishmash that looks little like the progress sharia supporters had envisaged. In their version, the tenets of Islam would guide leaders to care for the downtrodden, use resources wisely and punish criminals both powerful and lowly.

But few officials in sharia-governed states have been convicted of corruption, although critics point to their grand houses as evidence that wealth is not being spread.

"If anybody comes to me and asks for my support on the promise of implementing sharia, I wouldn't even vote for him," said Abba Adam Koki, an imam who served on a government sharia board for two years but said he quit after deciding that officials were committed only to preserving their power. "I prefer someone to come and tell me what programs he has for the people."

Government officials say they are doing their best and insist there can be no turning back from Islamic law, though they concede that a full sharia state in multi-faith Nigeria is impossible.

Sule Ya'u Sule, Kano state's spokesman, said the governor has established several agencies to oversee the spread of Islamic principles, including an anti-corruption unit and a branch that collects alms to pay the hospital bills of thousands of poor people each year. The government created 40,000 jobs in the four years prior to 2007 and has curbed prostitution and drinking, he said.

The challenges, Sule said, are that the secular federal police who still patrol Kano are unwilling to cooperate with the Hisbah and that the government does not gives states enough money. Officials require decent clothing, cars and houses, he said, but that does not mean they are corrupt.

"The federal government only gives you a little amount every month. And it is that amount that it expects you to use to develop the state," Sule said. "This money is not enough to finish this work and distribute it to the needy."

On a recent day outside the Islamic court in the northern city of Kaduna, two businessmen lamented that even the heart of Nigeria's Islamic law revolution -- its courts -- had turned out as sluggish as any.

In the turquoise-walled courtroom, prosecutors scolded the judge for postponing several long-standing cases on the docket, including an inheritance dispute and the case of a woman seeking to divorce her husband on grounds that their seven-year-old marriage had not been consummated.

Muhammed Bello, 45, and Yushau Inuwa, 28, were there to see whether a friend accused of theft a year ago -- and badly beaten by the Hisbah, they said -- would finally face trial. The courts were inefficient, they said, and the government had not delivered on what they referred to as their constitutional rights to better roads, schools and health care.

"It's a double tragedy," Inuwa said, though he insisted that the answer to his frustration was not violence. "We need better leaders."

Asian Companies’ Thirst for African Oil

Source: Chatham House

A new report on the activities of Asian oil companies in Africa exposes the flaws in many general assumptions about Asian engagement with Africa. Thirst for African Oil: Asian National Oil Companies in Nigeria and Angola analyses the impact of these companies in the two leading oil producing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and contrasts the stability and policy consistency that are features of the Angolan system with a more insecure and unstable system in Nigeria.

The report finds that fears in Western capitals about an Asian takeover in the Nigerian and Angolan oil sectors are ‘highly exaggerated’ - the oil majors still dominate production and hold the majority of reserves. Indeed, in Angola, there is growing fatigue among officials about the West’s fixation with China’s engagement with Angola.

Thirst for African Oil concludes that neither Nigeria nor Angola fits the stereotype of weak African states being ruthlessly exploited by resource hungry Asian tigers. In Nigeria’s case, a cash-hungry political class sought to profit from its Asian partners’ thirst for oil whilst in Angola the relationship with China was nurtured in a pragmatic, disciplined way to the mutual advantage of both countries.

The report also compares the experiences of Chinese companies with those of India, South Korea and Japan and assesses the growing competition between China and India where China’s deeper pockets have put a brake on India’s ambitions.

+ Full Report (PDF; 1.7 MB)

Warnings of Violence Ignored in Nigeria, Clerics Say

By Katharine Houreld
Associated Press
Monday, August 3, 2009

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Aug. 2 -- Nigerian authorities ignored dozens of warnings about a violent Islamist sect until it attacked police stations and government buildings last week in a bloodbath that killed more than 700 people, Muslim clerics and an army official said.

More than 50 Muslim leaders repeatedly called Nigeria's police, local authorities and state security to urge them to take action against Boko Haram sect militants but their pleas were ignored, Imam Ibrahim Ahmed Abdullahi said.

He spoke Saturday to the Associated Press along with several other Muslim scholars in the battle-ravaged city of Maiduguri.

"A lot of imams tried to draw the attention of the government," Abdullahi said, drawing nods from other scholars sitting with him in a Maiduguri slum. "We used to call the government and security agents to say that these people must be stopped from what they are doing because it must bring a lot of trouble."

Government officials did not respond Sunday to repeated requests for comment.

On July 26, militants from the sect attacked a police station in Bauchi state, triggering a wave of militant violence that spread to three other northern states. Nigerian authorities retaliated five days later by storming the group's sprawling Maiduguri headquarters, killing at least 100 people in the attack, half of them inside the sect's mosque.

About 700 people were killed in days of violence last week in Maiduguri alone, according to Col. Ben Ahanotu, the military official in charge of a local anti-crime operation. A relief official said thousands fled the city.

The death toll in other northern areas from the violence was not known and authorities did not say how many suspected militants have been arrested. Rights groups have claimed that innocent civilians were being slain during the government hunt for sect members.

The imams were not the only ones to raise the alarm. Ahanotu said he recommended several times that action be taken against the group but received no orders to do so.

"I complained a lot of times," he said. "I was just waiting for orders."

The allegations of authorities dismissing the warnings raise serious questions about the West African nation's capacity to monitor and defend itself against terrorist groups.

International concern is growing over the ability of al-Qaeda affiliates to cross the porous desert borders of north African countries such as Niger, which shares a border with Nigeria.

Little Holds Nigeria Back From Food Crisis

By David Hecht
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 2, 2009 8:59 PM

KANO, Nigeria -- The nation blessed with Africa's largest oil reserves and some of its most fertile lands has a problem. It cannot feed its 140 million people, and relatively minor reductions in rainfall could set off a regional food catastrophe, experts say.

Nigeria was a major agricultural exporter before oil was discovered off its coast in the 1970s. But as it developed into the world's eighth-largest oil producing country, its big farms and plantations were neglected. Today, about 90 percent of Nigeria's agricultural output comes from inefficient small farms, according to the World Bank, and most farmers have little or no access to fertilizers, irrigation or other modern inputs. Most do not even grow enough food to feed their own families.

Nigeria has become one of the world's biggest importers of food staples, particularly rice and wheat, both of which the country could potentially grow in large enough quantities to be self-sufficient. Even with the imports, about 38 percent of Nigerians younger than 5 suffer from moderate or severe malnutrition, according to UNICEF, while 65 percent of the population -- roughly 91 million people -- are what humanitarian organizations call "food insecure." They are at risk of waking up one morning to find that they have nothing to eat.

With increased variation in weather patterns, experts envisage far worse to come.

Nigeria is "high-stakes," said William A. Masters, associate head of Purdue University's Department of Agricultural Economics and a specialist in agriculture in Africa. "Malawi's successes or Zimbabwe's failures are small compared to what happens in Nigeria," he said.

The people who have suffered most from Nigeria's unreliable agricultural output are its impoverished neighbors. In 2005, when Nigeria had a bad harvest, traders imported grain from Niger, which borders Nigeria to the north. The increased demand caused food prices to spike beyond what locals in Niger could afford. Aid organizations sent in food aid, but much of it was also bought up by traders and diverted to markets in Nigeria. Nutritional surveys suggest that untold numbers of children died.

Aid organizations say that they are now better prepared for food shortages in Niger and other countries around Nigeria, but that Nigeria itself remains problematic.

"Its economy is so big and complex, we can't really get a handle on it," one senior aid official in the region said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. "The idea of a major drought or other disaster in Nigeria is almost too frightening for anyone to contemplate."

A Wake-Up Call

In theory, Nigeria could cope with a food emergency. The government is supposed to have the capacity to hold 300,000 metric tons of grain in reserve. But in practice, many of the silos for these grains have not yet been built, and those that have stand empty or are half-full.

"At best, the government's capacity is 300,000 metric tons and that capacity is only being half-utilized," said Guido Firetti, a silo contractor who recently took over the job of completing a 25,000-ton silo that has been under construction for more than 15 years.

For many in Nigeria, including some government officials, the global food crisis last year was a wake-up call. Prices of imported food soared, and the country panicked. Fearing food riots, the government announced it would spend $600 million to buy rice regardless of the price. The plan was quickly shelved when it became clear that getting the imported food to the people who needed it would take almost as long as growing the food locally.

The government then shifted gears. The money for importing food was reassigned to food self-sufficiency projects and, according to Nigeria's 2009 budget, the government's spending on agriculture is set to increase. The spike in world food prices, the worldwide recession and the slump in oil prices have spurred the government on, said Salisu Ingaw, the head of the National Food Reserve Agency. "Now we have to become more food self-sufficient," Ingaw said.

Embracing a Small Scale

Corruption is the usual explanation for why this ostensibly "rich" nation remains so underdeveloped. "But corruption is just the tip of the iceberg," said Masters, the Purdue specialist.

Even the most corrupt Nigerian governments invested in some infrastructure projects because they had so much oil wealth, Masters suggested. The problem is that so little of what they invested in ended up working, he said.

One widely held misconception that Nigerian governments fell for, Masters said, is that big farm ventures were inherently more productive than small ones. "Unless they are to be a link in a larger industrial process, the chances are high they will fail," he said "In most cases, large industrial farms don't have the necessary flexibility one finds in smaller family-style farms."

Nigerian development economist Shuaibu Idris said governments have traditionally seen small-scale farmers as backward, "but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a peasant one-man proprietor farm as long as the farmer can learn to adapt to new realities." Small-scale farmers may need to form cooperatives to share the cost of farm machinery and to buy inputs at bulk prices, he said.

That is also the conclusion recently embraced by the World Bank. In January, it approved a new $150 million Commercial Agriculture Development Project in Nigeria designed to support small- and medium-scale farmers.

The World Bank's new project, which is in the form of a loan to the government, will improve rural roads for farmers to reduce high transport costs and provide them with better storage facilities.

The good news is that Nigeria has boundless agricultural potential. Of the 3.14 million irrigable hectares of land in the country, the World Bank says only 7 percent is currently being utilized. And though large tracts of farmland have been lost to desertification, more than half the country's estimated 98 million hectares of arable land currently lie fallow.

"The opportunities for our farmers are enormous if only they were to get the right institutional support," said Sabo Nanono, the head of Kano state's commercial farmers association. "We could feed the entire West African region; we could produce enough rice in just two or three [of Nigeria's 36] states to feed the nation and even to export."

Somehow, the supply chain that feeds 140 million people keeps cranking along. The country has not seen a major famine for nearly four decades, since the Biafran civil war. But Nanono warned that it wouldn't take much to send this vulnerable country -- and region -- over the edge.

"The reality is that if the rains are bad throughout the region or the price of inputs became unaffordable, there could be massive food shortages, and neither the government nor any other institution stands ready to help," he said. "Then only God could save us."

David Hecht's report from Nigeria is part of the Food Insecurity project, a joint initiative of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and The Project for Under-Told Stories. View Hecht's audio slideshow on the project here. A companion story airs on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" by Special Correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro. The Food Insecurity Web site is an interactive portal that features additional articles on food issues that have appeared in The Post and other news outlets. The Web site also gives users the opportunity to engage with journalists directly and to post their own responses, in video and in print.

Nigerian Police Find Sect Women

Police in northern Nigeria say they have found another group of women and children abducted by the Boko Haram sect, locked in a house in Maiduguri.

The group were in a deplorable condition, officials said, suffering from pneumonia, fever and rashes.

The military now says 700 people were killed in Maiduguri alone during violent clashes between police and the Islamic sect.

An earlier tally of victims of the unrest put the figure at 400.

Col Ben Ahanotu, head of security in Maiduguri, said that mass burials had begun there.

The Boko Haram compound, he said, was being used as one of the burial sites because bodies were decomposing in the heat.

More than 200 women and children have now been found over the last week, locked in buildings in Maiduguri.

The most recent group of 140 is being housed at the local police headquarters, and have been visited by the Red Cross and the National Emergency Authority.

A Red Cross official told the BBC in Maiduguri that the women had been abducted by Boko Haram from six different states across northern Nigeria.

Last week, the police rescued about a 100 young women and children from a house on the edge of the city. Many said they were the wives of sect members, and had been forced to travel to Maiduguri from Bauchi state.

The BBC reporter in Maiduguri says the Boko Haram sect believed that their families should accompany them to the battlefield.

The compound used by the Boko Haram sect was destroyed by government troops and is now smouldering rubble.

More members of the sect have been arrested in house-to-house searches across northern Nigeria and the military said most would be prosecuted.

Life in the affected areas is now beginning to return to normal with banks and markets reopening.

Maiduguri is the capital of Borno state but the fighting spread to cities across the north of the country and the total number of dead is unknown.

A military spokesman said two of those killed were soldiers and 13 were police officers.

The number of injured, meanwhile, is still being counted. The Red Cross had earlier said about 3,500 people fled the fighting.

The violence ended on Thursday when the sect's leader, Mohamed Yusuf, was killed by police.

The controversy surrounding his death continues. The police say he was killed in a shoot-out while he was being detained. But Col Ahanotu says he captured him and handed him over alive.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8180257.stm

Published: 2009/08/02 10:38:14 GMT

Islamist Death 'Good for Nigeria'

A Nigerian government minister has expressed relief at the death of an Islamic sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf.

Yusuf's body was shown to journalists on Thursday just hours after police said they had captured him.

Human rights campaigners alleged he had been executed, but police said on Friday that he died in a shoot-out following days of bloody fighting.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili told the BBC that the government "does not condone extra-judicial killings".

The militant group led by Yusuf has been blamed for days of violent unrest in which hundreds of people died in clashes between his followers and security forces.

AT THE SCENE Bilkisu Babangida BBC News, Maiduguri At about 1600 I was about to leave for home with the rest of the journalists. We received a phone call to return back to the government house because the man, Mohammed Yusuf, had been captured. So we rushed up to that place. We heard some gunshots from somewhere, then we were told that the man had been "executed" at the police headquarters, at about 1900. They kept us waiting, they kept all the newsmen away from the scene. I saw a video and after that I rushed to the police headquarters and I saw the corpse. I even photographed the corpse of Mohammed Yusuf.

His group - known as Boko Haram or Taliban - wants to overthrow the Nigerian government and impose a strict version of Islamic law.

The bullet-riddled body of Mohammed Yusuf, 39, was seen hours after police announced he had been captured in the northern city of Maiduguri.

The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida says the city is returning to normal, with shops and banks re-opening.

She says many residents are happy that Mr Yusuf is dead.

'Shocking'

Information Minister Dora Akunyili told the BBC's Network Africa that she was concerned about the death and that the government would find out "exactly what happened".

However Mohammed Yusuf's demise was "positive" for Nigeria, she added.

"What is important is that he [Yusuf] has been taken out of the way, to stop him using people to cause mayhem."

She accused Mr Yusuf of "brainwashing" youths to cause trouble.

Ms Akunyili praised the security forces, saying they had managed to stop the violence spreading even further and that normality was returning to the region.

Human Rights Watch staff said there should be an immediate investigation into the case.

"The extrajudicial killing of Mr Yusuf in police custody is a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law," said Eric Guttschuss, of the New York-based rights group.

Another Human Rights Watch researcher, Corinne Dufka, told AP news agency: "The Nigerian authorities must act immediately to investigate and hold to account all those responsible for this unlawful killing and any others associated with the recent violence in northern Nigeria."

'Trying to escape'

Troops had stormed Boko Haram's stronghold in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri on Wednesday night, killing many of the militants and forcing others to flee.

No surprise at Nigeria killing In pictures: Clashes aftermath Nigeria's 'Taliban' enigma Islamist death: Your reaction

Mr Yusuf was arrested the following day after reportedly being found hiding in a goat pen at his parents-in-law's house.

Later, a BBC reporter in the city was among journalists shown two films - one apparently showing Mr Yusuf making a confession, the other showing what appeared to be his body, riddled with bullets.

"Mohammed Yusuf was killed by security forces in a shoot-out while trying to escape," the regional police assistant inspector-general, Moses Anegbode, told Nigerian television.

A spokesman for the state governor was also quoted as saying that Mr Yusuf had been trying to escape.

One policeman told AFP news agency Mr Yusuf had "pleaded for mercy and forgiveness before he was shot."

'Inspirational'

The violence began on Sunday night in Bauchi state, before spreading to other towns and cities in the northeast of the West African nation.

Crowds of militants tried to storm government buildings and the city's police headquarters, but dozens of them were shot dead by security forces.

Several days of gun battles between militants and Nigerian security forces ensued, culminating in the assault on the militant's stronghold.

It is thought more than 300 people have died in the violence - some estimates say 600, although there has been no official confirmation.

The Red Cross said about 3,500 people had fled the fighting and were being housed in their camp.

Witnesses and human rights groups have accused the military of excessive violence in quelling the militants, but the army says it used a minimal amount of force.

Police say Mr Yusuf was a preacher from Yobe state, who had four wives and 12 children.

They described him as a inspirational character.

His sect, Boko Haram, is against Western education. It believes Nigeria's government is being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence.

The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8177681.stm

Nigeria Forces Storm Sect Mosque

Nigerian security forces have stormed a mosque where militants from an Islamic sect blamed for days of deadly violence have been hiding out.

Reports say scores of fighters were killed in the assault, which came after a third night of gun battles in the northern city of Maiduguri.

Many of the militants have now fled, attacking police stations on their way.

The group, known as Boko Haram, wants to overthrow the government and impose a strict version of Islamic law.

Reports from the city on Thursday said the fighting had stopped and the streets were quiet.

In a short while we believe that everyone will be able to go about his normal duties Chris Olukolade Army spokesman

The assault by the security forces came after 1,000 extra soldiers were drafted into the city.

Army commander Major General Saleh Maina told the Associated Press that the deputy leader of the sect was killed in the bombardment.

But he said Mohammed Yusuf, leader of the group also known as "Taliban", escaped along with about 300 followers.

An AP reporter who watched the storming of the mosque on Wednesday night and counted about 50 bodies inside the building and another 50 in the courtyard.

Civilian casualties?

Army spokesman Chris Olukolade told the BBC's Network Africa programme that law and order had now been restored in Maiduguri.

"The enclave of the people causing the problem has been brought under better control and in a short while we believe that everyone will be able to go about his normal duties in that area," he said.

Nigeria's 'Taliban' enigma Eyewitness: Nigeria attacks Fear and tension after attack Nigerian attacks: Your reaction

The government eased curfew restrictions overnight, allowing people in the city more time on the streets in the evening.

The BBC's Caroline Duffield, in Nigeria, says the state governor has warned that anyone harbouring members of Boko Haram will be dealt with harshly.

But allegations are emerging that the security forces have killed innocent civilians and opened fire indiscriminately as they tackled the militants.

One eyewitness told the BBC he had seen three young men shot dead at close range while they were kneeling on the floor with their arms in the air.

The military strenuously denies claims it has caused civilian casualties.

'All necessary action'

The latest deaths would mean about 300 people have been killed in four days of clashes since an estimated 1,000 militants began attacking police stations and government buildings in several cities in northern Nigeria.

President Umaru Yar'Adua has ordered Nigeria's national security agencies to take all necessary action to contain and repel attacks by the extremists.

Security forces flooded into Maiduguri and began shelling Mr Yusuf's compound on Tuesday, after militants had attacked the city's police headquarters.

The violence broke out in Bauchi State on Sunday, before spreading to the states of Borno, particularly the state capital Maiduguri, Kano and Yobe.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.

The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

In Niger Delta, Uneasy Peace as Rebel Disarmament Date Nears

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 27, 2009

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria -- Signs of harmony seem to be budding in Nigeria's conflict-plagued Niger Delta region amid a government offer of amnesty to rebels and a leading militant group's halt to its attacks and kidnappings. But here in the swampy heart of the oil-rich but impoverished delta, many analysts and observers warn that the calm could be a prelude to all-out war.

Two weeks before the government is set to begin disarming as many as 10,000 militants in a 60-day amnesty program, it has revealed little about how it will reintegrate participants into society or address the demands for increased development and oil revenue that Niger Delta militants say drive their campaign of attacking oil installations and holding foreigners hostage.

The offer's vagueness is fueling fears that it will fail to lure militants and instead trigger a full-scale military offensive that could ensnare civilians living on the remote creeks where militants keep their camps.

"This is a window of opportunity," said Ogbonna Nwuke, a government commissioner in one of the Niger Delta states. "But the alternative, in my view, will be increased military operations by the Nigerian government. When that happens, ordinary men, women and children will be at risk . . . these are the things that happen at war."

The fate of this restive region, its lush land crisscrossed with creeks and oil pipelines, is of vital importance to stability in West Africa and to U.S. energy security. Sabotage by a web of militant groups has cut Nigeria's oil production by nearly one-half since 2006, but the nation remains the fifth-greatest oil supplier to the United States, which is turning more to Africa as it seeks to decrease its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the principal militant group known as MEND, launched a guerrilla-style battle three years ago. It attacks oil facilities and kidnaps foreign oil workers in what it calls a crusade to bring development to a region whose residents have enjoyed few of the riches from 50 years of oil production.

But the militants also steal and sell oil, and many began their careers as thugs hired by corrupt Niger Delta politicians to ensure electoral victory through intimidation. Most analysts regard them more as cash-hungry gangs -- often in cahoots with politicians and military members -- than freedom fighters.

"None of these people, not MEND, not the military leaders, not the politicians . . . none of them really represents the interests of the people in the delta," said a Western diplomat in Nigeria's capital, Abuja. "Too many people don't have an interest in settling" the crisis.

Starting Aug. 6, the government says it will give cash, job training and pardons to militants who turn in weapons. Earlier this month, officials granted one MEND demand by releasing the group's leader, Henry Okah, who was jailed on treason and weapons-trafficking charges.

Okah's release prompted MEND to declare a 60-day cease-fire and, on Monday, to free its last six hostages. But the group, which wants a military-led security task force to withdraw from the delta, has shunned the amnesty offer.

The developments followed shows of force by the government and the militants in a conflict that has grown increasingly bloody and aggressive. In May, after rebel attacks killed one soldier and left 18 missing, the task force bombed militant camps in an offensive it says scattered fighters. Human rights groups said the bombings displaced and killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians. Those claims have not been substantiated.

Two weeks ago, MEND attacked an oil installation several states away, near Lagos, the nation's largest city, in a brazen display of power that killed eight guards. The group said this week that it would "revisit" any facilities it destroyed if they were repaired.

"The current offer does not make any reference whatsoever to the root issues," Jomo Gbomo, a MEND spokesman, said in an e-mail, adding that the group expects renewed military offensives. "The African adage that when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers will ring true when the oil industry suffers a total collapse should such an attack on us occur."

Nigeria, which derives 90 percent of its foreign export earnings from oil, insists that its amnesty offer is a sincere peace effort. But it has also said that it would not cede to rebel demands and that it was prepared to take necessary action to curb the conflict, comments, some observers say, that show the military is eager to prove its might.

"These people are not real agitators. They are just bandits, criminals," Col. Rabe Abubakar, a spokesman for a Niger Delta military task force, said in an interview in the delta city of Warri. "For how long would this kind of thing go on in a normal country? I say no, we cannot allow this thing to continue."

Abubakar declined to speculate on the response if militants do not take the amnesty offer, which he insisted would work.

Previous government attempts to end the crisis have resulted in more bureaucracy than action, analysts say. Last fall, the government convened a "technical committee" on the Niger Delta, which recommended an amnesty and disarmament program facilitated by a third party, as well as increased oil revenue allocation and boosted infrastructure in delta states.

But the committee's leader, human rights activist and attorney Ledum Mitee, said he had to seek outside funding to even print the report, which he said he is not even sure government officials read.

In Port Harcourt, residents are wearily hoping that this attempt at peace succeeds.

"We pray it works, because the militants have disturbed us greatly," said Anthony Ejirimuo, a driver who said he lost clients as nervous oil companies pulled out foreign workers. "They say they are representing the people. Who sent them? They are only representing their own pockets."

Nigerian Islamist Attacks Spread

Dozens of people have been killed after Islamist militants staged three attacks in northern Nigeria, taking the total killed in two days of violence to 150.

A BBC reporter has counted 100 bodies, mostly of militants, near the police headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno State, where hundreds are fleeing their homes.

Witnesses told the BBC a gun battle raged for hours in Potiskum, Yobe State and a police station was set on fire.

Some of the militants follow a preacher who campaigns against Western schools.

ANALYSIS
By Caroline Duffield, BBC News, Nigeria

Tensions are never far from the surface in northern Nigeria. Poverty and competition for scarce resources, along with ethnic, cultural and religious differences have all fuelled sudden violence.

But the latest violence is not between communities, it involves young men from religious groups, arming themselves and attacking local police.

Fringe religious groups in Nigeria have claimed links to the Taliban before - individuals have also been accused of links to al-Qaeda. But Nigeria is very different to countries like Mali or Algeria, where groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operate.

The idea of radical Islamist militants gaining a serious foothold in Nigeria is usually dismissed, because of the strength of local identities and traditions.

The preacher, Mohammed Yusuf, says Western education is against Islamic teaching.

There has also been an attack in Wudil, some 20km (12 miles) from Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria.

A curfew is in force in Bauchi, the scene of Sunday's violence.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.

Nigeria's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims and Christians and the two groups generally live peacefully side by side, despite occasional outbreaks of communal violence.

Militants chanting "God is great" attacked the Potiskum police station at about 0215 local time (0115 GMT) - the same time as the raid was launched in Maiduguri.

The police station and neighbouring buildings in Potiskum have been razed to the ground, eyewitnesses say.

Two people have been confirmed dead and the police have made 23 arrests.

Fringe group

The corpses of civilians are scattered around the streets of Maiduguri, after being pulled from their cars and shot, eyewitnesses say.

The police and army are patrolling, firing into the air, apparently trying to clear civilians from the area.

There are unconfirmed reports of a jailbreak in the town.

In Wudil, three people have been killed and more than 33 arrested. The senior police officer in Wudil has been wounded.

Security is said to have been beefed up in Plateau State, to the south of Bauchi, where hundreds were killed in clashes between Muslims and Christians last year.

Mr Yusuf's followers in Bauchi are known as Boko Haram, which means "Education is prohibited".

They attacked a police station on Sunday after some of their leaders were arrested.

Correspondents say the group is seen locally as a fringe group and has aroused suspicion for its recruitment of young men, and its belief that Western education, Western culture and science are sinful.

HRW: Nigerian Forces Arbitrarily Killed Dozens In Jos

By VOA News 20 July 2009

Human Rights Watch has called on Nigerian authorities to prosecute security personnel who allegedly killed more than 130 people during sectarian violence last year.

Representatives of the group testified Monday before a judicial commission of inquiry in Nigeria's Plateau state.

In a report released Monday, Human Rights Watch accuses soldiers and police of arbitrarily killing 133 men and boys, nearly all of them Muslim, in the city of Jos last November.

It says most of the killings occurred November 29, the day after clashes between Muslim and Christian mobs killed several hundred people in Jos.

The report says police and soldiers shot unarmed citizens, and lined up victims on the ground before executing them.

Reuters news agency quotes a Plateau state police spokesman (Mohammed Lerama) as saying the accusations are not true.

The judicial commission has been tasked with looking into the causes of the Jos violence and identifying the people or groups responsible.

The violence erupted after the city's Muslim and Christian communities disputed the results of a local election.

Sectarian violence has flared before in Jos. Hundreds of people were killed there during street fighting in 2001.

Plateau State sits in Nigeria's "middle belt" region that separates the country's mainly Christian south from the predominantly Muslim north.