Curfew in Bauchi, North East Nigeria Over Religious Clash
AFP20090727614002 Abuja Hot FM in English 26 Jul 09
A curfew lasting from 9 PM to 6 AM has been imposed on Bauchi Town following violent clashes between the members of the Boko Haram Fundamentalist Islamic Group and the police which have left at least 100 people dead.
The clashes occurred after dozens of men armed with guns and explosives attacked a police station.
They were repelled and security forces responded by attacking a settlement on the edge of the city, reports said.
Authorities said the militants belonged to Boko Haram, a group that wants Shari 'ah law imposed across Nigeria.
Islamic law has been in effect in the state of Bauchi since 2001.
Briefing newsmen at his residence, Bauchi State governor, Alhaji Isah Yuguda, the success of the killer group called for celebration.
Yuguda called on his colleagues from other states to be aware of this deadly group and pleaded with law abiding citizens to go about their normal business.
The Boko Haram Religious Group is a fundamentalist Islamic sect based in Maiduguri, Borno State with the agenda of eradicating western education and value through jihad.
Their presence in Bauchi was noticed when they attack a police station at Dutsen Datch and all their leaders were killed.
[Description of Source: Abuja Hot FM in English - privately owned, independent radio]
Nigeria: Clash Between Police, Islamist Group Claims 42 Lives in Bauchi State
AFP20090727583010 Isheri Nigerian Compass Online in English 2300 GMT 26 Jul 09
[Report by Theophilus Remi: "Scores Killed in Police, Fundamentalists' Clash Govt Declares 9pm - 6am Curfew Onovo Ordered To Restore Law and Order"]
Scores of people were killed yesterday in Bauchi in a gun duel between security forces and a radical Islamist group, Boko Haram. The clash, which... dislodged many from their homes, came less than six months after a sectarian battle between Muslims and Christians claimed at least four lives.
Dozens of people, who attacked the Dutsen Tanshi Police Station in Bauchi, the state capital, were repelled and many seized by the anti-riot policemen deployed to keep the peace.
Many resident-settlers have fled to army barracks for fear that the crisis might again turn sectarian.
Bauchi police spokesman, Mohammed Barau, said the militants belonged to Boko Haram, a group seeking the imposition of sharia law across the country.
Islamic law has been in operation in the state since 2001.
A nurse in a government hospital, Awwal Isa, alleged that as many as 42 people were killed in yesterday's clash.
One of the dead was a soldier, according to the nurse. Scores of people were also reported to have been injured.
The police spokesman said the situation had been brought under control and that members of the gang were being detained.
One gang member, who gave his name as Abdullah, said yesterday's attack on the police barracks was a reprisal.
He said the group had retaliated because authorities had been arresting its leaders.
The man was also quoted as saying that the group wanted to "clean the (Nigerian) system which is polluted by Western education and uphold sharia all over the country."
Investigation by the Nigerian Compass revealed that the notorious fundamentalists had in the past created panic in the state.
They had questioned the rationale behind the introduction of compulsory education in the state, saying the people should be given freedom to choose and practice their religion the way they dim fit.
For months, the Malam Isa Yuguda-led administration had been preventing them from demonstrating publicly to avoid a total breakdown of law and order.
Reports said that the fundamentalists had in their hundreds trooped to the police station in the early hours of yesterday, chasing away the few officers on duty.
They destroyed everything in sight, except the armoury, which was secured when they struck.
The fleeing policemen had made a distress call to the command headquarters from where a reinforcement was dispatched to dislodge the rampaging fundamentalists.
Infuriated by the rioters' action, the combined military and police patrol teams went round the villages within the Bauchi neighbourhood to rout the fundamentalist's from their camps.
The police spokesman, who confirmed the arrests of more than 100 of them, also informed that the Minister of Police Affairs, Ibrahim Yakubu Lame, has ordered the acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ogbonnaya Onovo, to ensure peace and security of lives and properties of innocent citizens across the country.
According to him, the minister stressed the Federal Government's commitment to freedom of religion and that it would not allow the fundamentalists to cause a breach of the law in any part of the country.
Many people condemned the act in strong term, saying it is wrong for any one to attack the police whose duty is to protect lives and properties.
The Director of Press Affairs to the Governor, Mohammed Maigari Khanna, and other top government functionaries were seen at the Police Command Headquarters, yesterday.
Meanwhile, the state government has imposed a dusk to dawn curfew on the state.
It will run from 9pm to 6am during which security agents are to maintain law and order.
[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]
Xinhua: Clashes Between Police, Muslims Armed Youth Escalate in Two Nigerian States
CPP20090727968188 Beijing Xinhua in English 1339 GMT 27 Jul 09
[Xinhua: "Clashes Between Police, Muslims Armed Youth Escalate in Two Nigerian States"]
[Computer selected and disseminated without OSC editorial intervention]
LAGOS, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The face off between men of the Nigerian police force and some Islamic fundamentalists, popularly called "Boko Haram" in northeast Nigeria's Bauchi State has spread to two neighboring states with an unspecified number of persons killed.
According to local media reports, the armed youths in their hundreds set a police station ablaze in Potiskum, Yobe state, early Monday.
Also in neighboring Borno state, another armed group attacked a police station in the state's capital Maiduguri.
No security officials were available for comment and it was not clear if there were any casualties as at the time of filling this reports.
Earlier, Emmanuel Ojukwu, Police spokesman told Xinhua in a telephone interview in Abuja that normalcy is back in riot hit northeast Nigeria's Bauchi State as everything is back to order and situation has been put under control.
The riot was trigged by some Islamic fundamentalists, popularly called 'Boko Haram' which was said to have been campaigning against anything Western.
It was learnt that members of the sect had been planning a demonstration in Bauchi for a long time but were not given the chance because of the fear by government that their doctrine, if allowed to be preached publicly, would cause religious crisis, considering the fact that the teachings were completely contrary to those of other Islamic sects regarding peaceful coexistence.
About 200 people have been killed and many others seriously injured in the early hours of Sunday, following a renewed religious crisis in northern Nigeria's Bauchi State. Nigeria is a secular country with the population evenly divided between Christians and Muslims.
The northern region with 19 out of the country' s 36 states is predominantly Muslim, while Christians dominate the south.
[Description of Source: Beijing Xinhua in English -- China's official news service for English-language audiences (New China News Agency)]
Nigeria: Bauchi Governor Urges All States To Fight Militants
AFP20090727648002 Abuja AIT Television in English 2300 GMT 26 Jul 09
[For a copy of the video, contact or the OSC Customer Center at (800) 205-8615. Selected video also available at OpenSource.gov.]
About 39 members of an Islamist sect called Boko Haram have been killed in Bauchi, northeast Nigeria. This followed a raid Sunday [ 26 July] of a team of army and police personnel on the operations and training camps of the sect located in strategic places within the state capital. AIT's Teve Tiav has the details. However, the visual you are about to see may be disturbing.
[Begin recording] [Tiav] A briefing by police authorities about the raid had been postponed by 24 hours. But a police report spotted by AIT says that only 39 members of the extremist Islamist sect known as Boko Haram were killed. Sixteen sustained injuries, and 176 were arrested in the raid by security operatives. Those scores of dead bodies were ferried to the state police headquarters from the scenes of the raid before they were taken to the hospital mortuary. AIT confirmed that the raid followed an attack by members of the sect on the Dutse township divisional police headquarters in Bauchi in the early hours of Sunday. An eyewitness, Bala Saleh, narrates what happened when AIT visited the affected police station.
[Saleh] At 0530 in the morning, when I finished my subh prayer, so when I come to open my door, I hear some gunshots. When I come back from [words indistinct] I saw one of the policemen here, here, using his gun, shooting, how do they call it. Taliban or Boko Haram were moving there around the police station. They want to burn the police station. Taliban has a gun [words indistinct], bomb, guns, arrows, and everything. Come to the police station. The police say that they should move back; they should move back. They wouldn't move. They were coming, and then using Allahu Akbar [God is Great], Allahu Akbar here, So from that time, there has been shooting, shooting, shooting here.
[Tiav] The operating base and training camps of the Islamic sect raided by a team of police and army personnel allocated by the Bauchi airport, Gudun, and on Yelwa hills surrounding Bauchi metropolis. Several items were recovered, including vehicles, foodstuff, sewing machines, guns, explosives, and ammunitions. Meanwhile, the Bauchi State governor, Isa Yaguda, has confirmed the development, describing the sect as a militant group which is also operating in other states of the federation. He has called on other governors to be on the alert.
[Yaguda] The incident of today is something that is something that is more like a nation case, a national issue. It is not a domestic issue, the issue of militancy. We have been faced with problems of militancy all over the country. And I think that that in Bauchi has its own unique features. And you can see today it was an all-out war. And today, the entire town is in celebration. So, we have to offer thanks to Almighty God. Because they were prepared to attack and eliminate everybody. So, they are not only in Bauchi, they are everywhere in Nigeria. I think we should brace up. All the governors should brace up to clean their states.
[Tiav] The sect is an Islamist group which claims to be opposed to Western education, and is recruiting men, women, and children amongst Muslims to fight its cause, which includes attack on government establishments, especially the police and other security agencies. The group is said to have had plans to eliminate prominent Islamic scholars and imams in Bauchi State. To remain on top of the security situation a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m curfew has been imposed on Bauchi metropolis and its environs. Teve Tiav, AIT [end recording]
Click here to view video.
[Description of Source: Abuja AIT Television in English -- privately owned television]
Nigeria: About 65 Killed as Police Battle Islamists
AFP20090727642001 Paris AFP (World Service) in English 1523 GMT 27 Jul 09
BAUCHI, Nigeria, July 27, 2009 (AFP) - Nigeria's security forces on Monday fought gun battles with radical Islamists who went on a rampage torching churches, police posts and government buildings in four northern states.
Police put the number of dead from the weekend religious clashes at 65 in two states of Bauchi and Yobe, as of early Monday morning.
In Borno state, heavily armed Islamist rebels torched a police headquarters, a church and a customs office in the border town of Gamboru-Ngala overnight before moving to the state capital Maiduguri where battles ran into the afternoon.
A Nigerian Islamist sect styled on Afghanistan's Taliban burnt down a central prison in Maiduguri, two police stations, several churches, a government primary school and offices of a state unemployment bureau.
"The situation has degenerated into big battles between the Taliban ... and the soldiers and police. Since morning, you can hear nothing but gunfire all over the city," resident Sanisu Ahamad told AFP by telephone as sound of gunfire could be heard in the background.
"Many government buildings have been burnt including the central prison and several churches. Streets are deserted. People are in their homes," he said.
Several telecommunications masts have been burnt cutting off many parts of the city.
Maiduguri is the Nigerian Taliban birthplace and stronghold and some neighbourhoods there are seen as Taliban enclaves.
Muhammad Auwal Mujahid told AFP by phone: "Its quite scary, all you hear is frightening sounds from guns."
In Wudil town situated on the outskirts of Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, the militants attacked a police station but were repelled in clashes that left three rebels dead, Kano police spokesman Baba Mohammed told AFP.
In Yobe, the militants doused a police station with petrol and set it alight.
"The police station is still burning with billows of dark smoke... coming from the inferno," said resident Ibrahim Bashir.