Curfew in Bauchi, North East Nigeria Over Religious Clash afp20090727614002 Abuja Hot fm in English 26 Jul 09

In Jalingo, Taraba State, security agents have located a school where the sect trains its members while in Kano, the state government has demolished a mosque used by the armed group.

A senior government official in Maiduguri claimed that 4,000 people had fled their homes as troops and militants engaged in battles for the fourth day.

The opposition Action Congress (AC) has described President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's trip to Brazil in the face of the crisis as ill-timed.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Apollus Jediel said about 1,000 people fled their homes in Maiduguri yesterday alone and appealed to the state government to assist the displaced persons.

Militants seeking to impose Sharia law throughout the multi-religious country attacked a police station in Bauchi State on Sunday. The violence spread to three other states, hundreds of people are reported to have been killed in the violence. Police said most of the victims were militants.

Yusuf's residence was shelled by troops on Tuesday evening, along with a mosque where many of his followers meet, but he allegedly escaped.

"The house and the mosque have been pulverised and reduced to rubble. To be honest with you I don't think the campaign will be finished within the next day or two," a police officer said.

Yesterday, the Borno State government advised residents of the six areas adjoining the scene of the fighting to stay indoors as the attack on the militants continued, to avoid being hit by stray bullets. The areas include Kumshe, Floor Mills, Kasuwan Shanu, State Low Cost, Kofar Biyu and Gamboru Police Station.

The police in Borno also said yesterday that they had concluded arrangement to return the 180 women and children allegedly lured to Maiduguri from Bauchi and nine others from Bukuru in Plateau State under the guise that they were going for Islamic Jihad.

Police spokesman, Isa Azare, commended the state government for its pledge to assist the command transfer the women and children back to their Bauchi base.

He said the Deputy Governor, Adamu Shettima Dibal, has promised the state government's financial assistance to the police to enable them transport the people back to their places, but it was not clear as at press time if the promise had been fulfilled.

Azare would, however, not give the exact details of the casualties, saying it was difficult to give a precise figure, given the fact that the operation was on-going. "You know it is not appropriate to give any figure of casualties now, because, apart from the sects members that were killed, there are a good number of policemen that are still missing. Until after the operation when the coast becomes clearer, nobody can give a definite number of those who have lost their lives."

But The Guardian learnt that the two hospitals in the state capital had been finding it difficult to accommodate the growing number of victims. For instance, it was learnt that the mortuary of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) had been filled to capacity. As a result, bodies were being dumped at the car park, at the Umaru Shehu Ultra Modern Hospital, Bulumkutu.

However, concerns were being raised as the expected capture of Yusuf appeared far- fetched given the inability of the combined military and police operations to capture the sect leader, who, is said to be taking human shields to avoid arrest. As a resident told The Guardian, the military is incapacitated by the fact that Yusuf had tactically resorted to human shields to avoid arrest.

For instance, at the Shehu North, men of the Operation Flush 11 were seen beating a retreat having been overwhelmed by the high number of the sect members who were said to be coming out in their hundreds from their hide-outs. The area is close to the palace of the Shehu of Borno.

Col. Ben Ahanotu, commander of Operation Flush 11, confirmed the fears as he said residents taken hostage, including women and children of the sect members, numbered over 1,500, adding that "we cannot raze down Yusuf's residence and the mosques right now (yesterday). There are a lot of people in the houses in the MRTA and two main residential areas of Maiduguri and Jere council areas."

A statement by the Director of Press Affairs to the Governor, Usman Chiroma, also confirmed that Yusuf and his followers were using the civil populace as cover".

He quoted Governor Ali Modu Sheriff as advising all residents of the affected areas to stay indoors to avoid endangering their lives.

Maj.-Gen. Saleh Maina, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3rd Armoured Division, Jos, who is leading the offensive, ordered his men to suspend the shelling to allow civilians to move out of the area to reduce human casualties, because the fundamentalists live in the State Low Cost Estate, Shehu and Abaganaram."

The Guardian further learnt that at about 1p.m. yesterday, the five armoured tanks deployed to the MRTA, were stationed 500 metres away from the sect's stronghold. One of the armoured carriers was on Tuesday attacked and its tyre was punctured, while advancing towards Yusuf's house and mosque.

While a combined force of 500 soldiers and policemen took strategic positions at all the entries to the area, Ahanotu, in a message to The Guardian disclosed that more than 65 sect members were killed while they were fleeing the platoon soldiers to Yusuf's house and mosque.

He said the joint military and police was able to arrest the second in command to the leader of the sect, Bukar Shekau, while Yusuf, was still with some members holed up in the house. Unconfirmed reports claimed that before the capture of Shekau, both men were sighted in military camouflage.

Shekau, according to military intelligence sources at the Maiduguri Government House, is providing useful information and means of arresting Yusuf and his armed members.

Meanwhile, all schools, markets, banks, the Maiduguri Monday Market and Musa Usman Secretariat complex that houses 18 ministries and parastatals have remained closed. Besides, the major streets in the metropolis, including the ever-busy Post Office-Airport Road and Shehu Laminu Way that lead to the MRTA were deserted.

The Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Mohammed Ali Ndume, has blamed the Federal Government for not acting enough to reign in the terrorists, in spite of the earlier security information available to it.

The lawmaker, who represents Damboa/Chibok/Gwoza Federal Constituency in the House of Lower Representatives maintained that the government was briefed early enough ahead of the possible out-break of the crisis, but did not act promptly.

The Kano State government, which yesterday expressed concern over the Islamic militant's presence in the North, demolished a mosque in Wudil used by one of the group's leader, Salisu Al- Amin Wudil.

The state government described the activities of the group as unfortunate in view of the fact that the Ibrahim Shekarau administration had been committed to peaceful co-existence and religious harmony amongst residents of the state.

In a statement signed by Adamu Abdullahi, the government reiterated its commitment to the goal of ensuring the security of lives and property of all residents.

The Managing Director of the Kano State Urban Planning and Development Agency (KNUPDA), Malam Hassan Na'Abba confirmed the demolition of the mosque and the residents of the militants' leader.

Na'Abba said the mosque w as situated in a location in Wudil not within areas earmarked for the constriction of residential and religious buildings.

In Jalingo, the sect's school located at Angwan Lariya, the state capital, was said to be solely dedicated to the teaching of ethics opposed to western civilisation.

Confirming the report, the Chairman of the Moslem Council of Nigeria (MCN), Alhaji Inuwa Jauro Manu, blamed the security agencies and the Ministry of Education for allowing such a school to exist in the state.

The school, reportedly named Alfurqan Islamic School, is located on the same street as the Motor Traffic Division (MTD) of the Nigeria Police.

Manu, who was visibly dejected, said even though, the "sect called itself a religious organisation, its actions and activities does not conform with Islam"

The proprietor, whose name was given as Malam Salihu, was said to have fled to Maiduguri along with some of his followers and their families two days to the mayhem in Borno.

AC has described as ill-timed and ill-advised the current three-day official trip to Brazil by Yar'Adua, at a time the country was in the throes of violence triggered by the misguided and self-styled 'Nigerian Taliban' sect.

In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party wondered what was so compelling about the trip that it could not be deferred in the national interest.

"At the last count, four states in the north have borne the brunt of the violence unleashed by the senseless members of this sect, and dozens of lives, including those of security agents, have been lost while property worth billions have been damaged.

"In addition, hundreds of our citizens have been displaced and left deeply traumatized, while there is palpable fear across the country that the violence may either spread further or degenerate.

"It is therefore unconscionable that the President, who is the father of the nation, could take this time to travel to Brazil, instead of visiting the affected areas and offering succour to the people affected," AC said.

"The President's hastily-arranged media interaction before his departure, during which he commented on the crisis, has done little or nothing to change the fact that the timing of the trip was bad," the party added.

[Description of Source: Lagos The Guardian Online in English -- Website of the widely read independent daily, aimed at up-market readership; URL: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/]

Bauchi State Governor Seeks Collaboration From Nigerian States To Curb Militancy

AFP20090730565003 Isheri Nigerian Compass Online in English 2300 GMT 29 Jul 09

[Report by Gbenga Akingbule and Sola Adeyemo: "Sectarian Violence: Brigadier-General Escapes Death in Maiduguri; 180 Hostages Freed; 35 Killed; Tension in Ibadan; 'Boko Haram' Leader Vows To Continue Attacks"]

It sounded crazy and unbelievable, but it was real. Islamic fundamentalists, under the aegis of Boko Haram, who wreaked havoc in some states in the North in the last few days, made a more daring move on Tuesday night.

In a gestapo manner, about 200 of them went after the Brigade Commander of the 21 Armoured Brigade, Maiduguri, Borno State, Brigadier-General K. A. S. Yahaya, in an attempt to kill him.

Of course, it turned out to be a costly mission, as soldiers rounded up and shot all of them.

Besides, no fewer than 35 of the fundamentalists were killed by the police in Yobe and Kastina states yesterday.

While 33 were sent to their early grave in a village near Potiskum, Yobe State, two were killed in Danja, Katsina State.

The spokesman of the Yobe State Police Command, Muhamed Paddah, confirmed the casualty figures.

The bodies of those felled in Katsina, identified by the police as Malam Murtala and Malam Aminu, have been deposited at the Funtua General Hospital.

The attempt on the life of the brigade commander, sources said, was part of the daring moves by the financiers of the fundamentalists to plunge the nation into chaos.

Apart from the soldiers, who battled those who stormed the barracks to submission, a combined team of the police and the State Security Service (SSS) also engaged those who prowled the streets of Maiduguri in gun duels that left many of the fundamentalists dead.

Booming sounds of gun kept many residents of the arid city awake throughout the night.

Several bodies of the radical sect members were seen in front of the state police headquarters on Jos-Kano road.

As at the time of this report, Governor Ali-Modu Sheriff was holding a meeting with security chiefs in the state and the General Officer Commanding (GOC), 3 Armoured Division, Jos, Major General Saleh Maina, who flew to Maiduguri on Tuesday to review the security situation.

Military sources told the Nigerian Compass that the decision to launch an offensive against the fundamentalists was contained in a directive by President Umaru Yar'Adua before he left for Brazil on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, more than 180 women and children have been freed from a house in Maiduguri where they had been held by the radical sect.

They said they were held for six days and lived only on dates and water.

Boko Haram is blamed for attacks on police stations and government sites in the North, triggering violence that has killed at least 200 people.

The women and children were said to have been abducted from Bauchi, where the violence began on Sunday.

The sect is led by Mohammed Yusuf, who has his base in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

After the members launched a bloody attack against security forces, soldiers flooded into Yusuf's compound, shelling it with heavy weapons. They also exchanged gunfire with his followers.

The officer commanding the operation, Col. Ben Ahanotu, said the militants were well-armed and kept up a steady stream of fire.

He said there were at least 250 armed men guarding Yusuf's home, also the headquarters of the sect.

There were about another 1,000 people inside the enclave, all believed to be followers of Boko Haram.

Ahanotu also said that papers and personal items found on the bodies of the young men, indicated that many of them were not Nigerians and appear to have come from neighbouring Chad and Niger.

Meanwhile, the police in Katsina State have arrested five others, suspected to be members of the group in Danja Local Government Area of the state.

They were said to be part of the group that attacked the Danja Divisional Police Station at about 2 a.m on Tuesday, during which they wounded two policemen, snatched two guns and attempted to burn the station before they were overpowered and forced to flee.

Mr. Abdulmaji Ali, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, said that security operatives were still combing the bushes in Danja for the fleeing militants.

Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State has also said that the Governors' Forum would discuss strategies to curb militancy.

He told newsmen in Bauchi that the latest invasion of some North-East states by the fanatics opposed to Western education, was an act of "terrorism".

Yuguda said the problem was not a regional crisis, but a national one, hence the need for collaboration by all the 36 states to curb it.

He declared: "The problem is not a North-East problem, but a national issue. The people are lunatics, they have psychiatric problems.

"Very soon, the Northern Governors' Forum will meet to discuss the issue. I have discussed the problem with the chairman of the 36 Governors' Forum, and he will soon call an emergency meeting.

"We are taking it at the zonal and national levels, and very soon, we will solve the problem."

The governor said the militants had planned to attack churches, to give an impression that it was a crisis between Christians and Muslims.

He, however, added: "By the time we demolished their houses, there was no single Quran found there.

"The leader of the sect is about 32 years old. He is riding in Jeeps, he has his children in private schools, has private lawyers and doctors, who treat him. He is now the one indoctrinating people against Western education."

Also yesterday, the Oyo State Police Commissioner, Baba Bolanta, suspended his maiden familiarisation tour of units under his command, in response to alleged threats of sectarian crisis.

There were rumours yesterday that the sectarian crisis might have spread to some areas of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Bolanta, who had gone to Ogbomoso, was to visit Kishi, Igboho and Igbeti formations, among others.

The commissioner raced back to his office in the state capital and told newsmen that the reports making the rounds that some extremists were set to breach the peace in Ibadan were unfounded.

He added that since he did not want to take chances, he had to suspend the tour.

Bolanta allayed fears of any crisis, assuring that his men were fully on ground to stem any threats.

Meanwhile, one of the leaders of the Islamist group has said they would continue the attacks and killings.

Ibrahim Khalil Zarkawi, leader of the Boko Haram group in Yobe, Azare and Kano, told the Radio France International (RFI) Hausa service that they were holding nine police officers and four army personnel. He said that "two of the police officers are women."

"We are attacking police because they killed our brothers in Jos and Bauchi," Zarkawi told Bashir Ibrahim Idris of RFI's Hausa service. "There isn't good leadership in Nigeria. Muslims are being killed daily and the authorities are doing nothing about it. These are the reasons why we are retaliating against the police, because they are the ones who killed our brothers."

Zarkawi, who said he was speaking from the Potiskum-Damaturu road in Yobe State, said the group had already brought their grievances before the government.

"We've done that but the judiciary did not act on our petition," he said. "Everybody kept quiet. Our leaders are not saying anything - our president refused to act. The police are taking advantage of their position to kill us. That was why we decided to take the law into our hands, because enough is enough.

"We have the necessary arms to attack. At the moment, we've sealed Borno State. We won't stop until we've achieved our mission, and we have God on our side. The police claimed they killed 150 of our members, Boko Haram. It's not true. We are intact and we will continue to attack."

Zarkawi acknowledged that innocent people were suffering but blamed the government for failing to intervene earlier.

"The government did the same to us. Our president, who is a Muslim, refused to act in stopping the maiming of Muslims in Jos and Bauchi.

"We want to show the government that it doesn't have the wherewithal to deal with us. It's after that that we would start talking to go vernment."

[Description of Source: Isheri Nigerian Compass Online in English -- Website of the privately owned newspaper close to former Rivers State Governor Peter Odili; URL: http://www.compassnewspaper.com]

Nigeria: Troops Search Fleeing Extremists in Maiduguri Amid Heavy Gun Fire

AFP20090730641001 Paris AFP (World Service) in English 0639 GMT 30 Jul 09

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, July 30, 2009 (AFP) - Troops pounded parts of a northern Nigeria city overnight after reinforcements were sent in to help rout fleeing members of an extremist sect whose base they razed, witnesses said.

Residents and an AFP reporter heard sounds of heavy and light machine gun fire rattling across sections of the capital not previously targetted on the fifth day of deadly clashes.

The latest gunbattles came just hours after the army announced bolstering its ranks with 1,000 more soldiers to fight members of the self-styled Taliban sect.

"Fighting is still going on between the military and Boko Haram. Throughout the night, we heard gunfire coming from Shokai and Dekwa Lowcost (suburbs)," Mala Bukar, a resident of an adjacent neighbourhood told AFP.

"Up to this morning fighting is still continuing and from where we are we can hear the sound of heavy and light machineguns," he added.

An army commander said members of the Nigerian Islamist fundamentalist sect fled their bases in northern city of Maiduguri on Wednesday after the military overran their mosque and leader's house base.

Colonel Ben Ahonotu, commander of the operation against the self-styled Taliban told AFP: "We have taken over their enclave, they are on the run and we are going after them."

Residents said they saw scores of militants pass through their area Wednesday heading out of the city, some of them disguising themselves by cutting off their hair and beards.

"We spotted dozens of members of Boko Haram fleeing. They stopped by briefly, shaved their hair and beard and discarded their trademark jellabiyah (white arabic caftans) for tee-shirts and jeans, and moved on," said Hamad Bulunkutu told AFP.

"They crossed the Gamboru market river and disappeared from there," he added.

Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, has seen the worst of the unrest in northern Nigeria which started on Sunday in Bauchi state when militants attacked a police station.

It has been the birthplace and stronghold of the fundamentalists who are opposed to Western education and values.

The Nigerian extremists emerged in 2002 in Maiduguri before setting up a camp on the border with Niger, from where they launched a series of attacks on the police.

The leadership has previously said it intends to lead an armed insurrection and rid society of "immorality" and "infidelity".

President Umaru Yar'Adua had ordered the armed forces to crush the movement "once and for all".

Fighting on Wednesday concentrated on enclaves of Maiduguri believed to house the sect's leader Mohammed Yusuf. The death toll from the clashes has already surged past 300 and thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes to escape the violence.

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (World Service) in English -- world news service of the independent French news agency Agence France Presse]

Nigeria: Army, Police Joint Team Kills 33 Members of Islamic Sect in Yobe State

AFP20090730578002 Abuja Daily Trust Online in English 30 Jul 09

[Report by Hamza Idris: "33 Boko Haram Followers Killed"]

A combined team of army and police yesterday launched a reprisal attack and killed 33 members of the Boko Haram sect at their hideout in Mamudo village, near Potiskum town of Yobe State.

The sect members had attacked Potiskum town on Monday and killed at least five people, including three police officers.

In yesterday's counter attack, the armed personnel ambushed the extremists around 8 am and opened fire on them, using armoured tanks and sophisticated weapons.

Two members of the sect who fled from the scene were later arrested in Potiskum while another two were captured in Fika town following a tip off from members of the public, Yobe State Commissioner of Police Mohammed Abbas Murtala said at a news conference in Damaturu, the state capital.

He said the arrest of the sect members would assist security agents to obtain vital information about their hideouts, strengths and sponsors.

Before the reprisal attack, the insurgents, numbering about 50, had in the early hours of the day reportedly blocked the Maiduguri-Kano highway and disrupted the movement of vehicles.

In the ensuing confusion, they were said to have also snatched a Hilux truck belonging to the state's Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).

The commissioner said that, with the latest onslaught on the sect members whom he described as hoodlums, "security forces have depleted their number and strength."

He said the army and police are still combing all the surrounding villages and hideouts with the aim of arresting the remaining members of the sect.

The charred remains of the 33 corpses which police sources said included the Yobe State chairman of the Boko Haram sect were later displayed at the police headquarters in the state.

Our correspondent saw many of the dead bearded insurgents, wearing boots and other jungle apparels. The commissioner said the joint task force did not record any casualty during the latest encounter.

He said items recovered at the scene of the battle include: six rifles, two pistols, one dane gun, three AK 47 empty magazines, two FNC empty magazines, two pistol empty magazines, 32 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunitions and 81 rounds of .9mm live ammunitions.