Deadly Nigeria fighting rages

29/07/2009| IslamWeb

Nigeria soldiers and fighters demanding Islamic law across the country have engaged in more gun battles despite claims by the president that the country is "under control".

Three days of fighting across four states has left more than 100 people dead and several thousand displaced.

Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the president, said on Tuesday that the authorities had contained violence in the northern states of Yobe and Bauchi, where clashes erupted two days earlier.

His comments came after Nigerian authorities imposed a curfew and deployed troops to the country's north to quell the violence.

Suspected leader surrounded

But late on Tuesday, government troops and armored vehicles surrounding the suspected hideout of Mohammed Yusuf, said to be the leader of the group known as Boko Haram, continued to exchange fire with fighters in Maiduguri, the capital of northern Borno state.

A source at the police headquarters told the AFP news agency that the troops had shelled Mohammed Yusuf's home and a mosque run and guarded by hundreds of followers.

Witnesses reported seeing and hearing intermittent machine-gun fire.

Yar'Adua said security forces were still working in Borno to bring the situation under control and vowed to "flush out" the fighters.

Deadly rampage

Boko Haram has called for the enforcement of Sharia or Islamic law, across Africa's most populous nation.

The group has targeted police in four northern states since early Sunday after police arrested several leaders of the group.

The unrest is the deadliest violence in Nigeria since last November when human rights groups say up to 700 people were killed in the central city of Jos in clashes between Muslims and Christians.

Nigeria's 140 million people are nearly evenly divided between Christians, who predominate in the south, and primarily northern-based Muslims.

Islamic law was implemented in 12 northern states after Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 following years of military rule.

More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in violence since then.

PHOTO CAPTION

Map locating Maiduguri, capital of Borno state in northeastern Nigeria.

Al-Jazeera