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Nigerian forces shell sect leader's home, mosque
2009-07-28
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AFP) - Fresh fighting broke out here Tuesday after Nigerian forces shelled a mosque and the home of the leader of an Islamic fundamentalist sect on the third day of fierce clashes that have killed more than 250 people, witnesses said. Sporadic mortar fire and gunshots rang out as soldiers shelled the mosque and home of Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, sending plumes of smoke rising over the capital of northern Borno State. An AFP correspondent, meanwhile, witnessed soldiers shooting three young men dead at point blank range close to the city's police headquarters. The men who had just been arrested were seen kneeling and pleading for their lives before being shot. "The deafening sounds are from mortar shelling of the house of the leader of the Taliban by the military," a source at the police headquarters told AFP. "The military is also shelling the mosque run by the group, which hundreds of its followers have been guarding," he said. The shelling came as Nigerian security forces sought to end an uprising by the self-styled Nigerian "Taliban" which has said it wants to lead an armed insurrection and rid society of "immorality" and "infidelity." The group has targeted police in four northern states since early Sunday. Later Tuesday, the shelling stopped, but fresh fighting broke out, resident Mohammed Awwal Mujahid, told AFP, adding that he could see flashes of light and hear heavy machine gunfire. President Umaru Yar'Adua, speaking in the capital Abuja, said the situation in northern Nigeria was "under control" and indicated that a final assault was underway. "We have the situation under control now and I believe that by the end of the day, everything would have been taken care of," Yar'Adua told reporters as he boarded a flight at Abuja airport for Brazil. The military operation under way would "contain them once and for all," he added. "They will be dealt with squarely and forthwith." During the assault security forces overran the home of the elusive sect leader Yusuf and a nearby mosque used by his followers. "We are not sure whether he has been killed in the shelling or has managed to escape," a police officer said of Yusuf. The fighting began Sunday in nearby Bauchi State before spilling over into Yobe, and authorities said 55 were killed in both states. However, most of the casualties appear to have been in Maiduguri, the northeastern city known as the birthplace and stronghold of the Islamic fundamentalist group. Clashes between security forces and radical Islamists there on Monday alone killed at least 206 people, a police source told AFP. An AFP reporter counted 30 bodies strewn across the grounds of the police headquarters on Tuesday before 10 more were brought in. Dozens of other bodies which littered the grounds of the police headquarters earlier had been taken away. Yar'Adua had earlier placed security forces on maximum alert late Monday as the death toll mounted. The streets of Maiduguri which is under a dusk-to-dawn curfew were deserted Tuesday except for police patrols. Dozens of residents fled to the protection of the police headquarters. Around 200 militant Islamists had kept an overnight vigil outside the mosque and Yusuf's home. They were described as "fearless" and "fanatics" by Isa Azare, police spokesman for Maiduguri. The militants went on the rampage torching churches and government buildings. The unrest is the deadliest sectarian violence in Nigeria since November last year when human rights groups say up to 700 were killed in the central city of Jos in direct clashes between Muslims and Christians. The fighting in the north erupted Sunday in Bauchi state, when police hit back at militants after a foiled attack at a police station, and spread rapidly to neighbouring states. The Nigerian extremists emerged in 2002 in Maiduguri before setting up in 2004 a camp -- dubbed "Afghanistan" -- in Kanamma village in Yobe, on the border with Niger, from where it attacked three police outposts and killed police officers. Troops then moved in to raze the camp during battles in which scores were killed. Many were arrested while others went underground. Remnants re-emerged in Maiduguri. Northern Nigeria is mainly Muslim, although large Christian minorities have settled in the main towns, raising tensions between the two groups. Since the return of a civilian regime to Nigeria's central government in 1999, 12 northern states have adopted Islamic Sharia law. The latest attacks, which independent security analysts say were co-ordinated, affected a third of these states.
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