Nigeria: Hundreds die during battles with militants

[P & CA News Bot]

Nigeria steps up security across northern areas, following attacks by Muslim militants in which at least 100 people have died.

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[Francois Cellier]

From CNN

Nigeria: Hundreds die during battles with militants

updated 1 hour, 10 minutes ago


LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) -- About 300 people have been killed in a spate of violence in northern Nigeria, the president of a human rights group said Tuesday.

The violence has pitted Islamic militants against government police and troops in the north-central part of the nation, officials said.

Attacks continued Tuesday in the suburbs of the northern city of Maiduguri, said Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress, a human rights organization based in northern Nigeria. People there are seeking refuge in police and military barracks and in hospitals, he said.

Police and troops were dispatched to the militants' hideouts after they began attacks on government establishments Sunday, said police spokesman Moses Anegbode. As authorities exchanged fire with the militants, 41 people, including a soldier and a policeman, were killed, Anegbode said Monday. In addition, some 176 people were arrested in Bauchi, he said.

Besides Bauchi, militants also staged attacks on the nearby states of Yobe and Borno on Sunday and Monday, said Emmanuel Ojukwu, spokesman for the national police.

Yobe's police commissioner, Alhaji Muhammed Abbas, said that 23 suspected militants were arrested in connection with a bomb attack at a police station in Potiskum that killed a policeman and a civilian and wounded seven people.

The official News Agency of Nigeria reported that as many as 100 members of a religious sect led by Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf may have been killed in a confrontation with police.

In Borno, police spokesman Isa Azare said that two policemen were killed in an attack on police headquarters late Monday.

"The religious fanatics took the police unawares," Azare told the government-affiliated New Nigerian newspaper. "That was why they succeeded in killing all the officers on night duty."

Panicked residents stayed inside in all three states, and businesses shut down, even though officials said the situation was under control.

The militants used guns, bows and arrows and machetes in the attacks, officials said.

The militants disagree with the government's teaching of Islam in the region, maintaining that the government allows itself to be influenced by Western values, and have been attacking government offices and Islamic clergy.

There is a history of religious violence in central Nigeria, where majority-Muslim north Africa meets largely Christian sub-Saharan Africa. Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 1,000 people were killed in riots in 2001.

The human rights organization alleged last week that police and soldiers killed at least 133 people during two days of riots between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria last year. Most of the victims were young Muslim men, often unarmed, the group charged in testimony before a state commission examining the riots and in a separate report. More than 700 people died in the violence, the organization said, citing local religious authorities on both sides of the divide.

[P & CA News Bot]

Police in Nigeria free 180 women and children held by a radical Islamist sect, as the army battles the well-armed sect.

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[P & CA News Bot]

Members of a Nigerian radical Islamist sect reportedly flee the northern city of Maiduguri after the army overruns their base.

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[P & CA News Bot]

The leader of an Islamic sect blamed for deadly violence in Nigeria has been shot dead hours after capture, police say.

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[Bateman]

Originally Posted by P & CA News Bot

The leader of an Islamic sect blamed for deadly violence in Nigeria has been shot dead hours after capture, police say.

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Good. I hope they ground him up and fed him to a herd of swine.

[Mr.Sillypants]

Boko Haram: How 3 pastors were beheaded eyewitness
From TIMOTHY OLA, Maiduguri
Thursday, August 6, 2009

One of the victims of last week’s attack by the Yusufiya sect in Borno State has given a shocking account of how the Islamic extremists killed three pastors who were captured along with other victims on the second day of the insurgence. The victim was among those held hostage in Yusuf’s enclave.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Sun in Maiduguri, the eye witness who preferred anonymity disclosed that the three pastors were beheaded on the instruction of the sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf shortly after bringing them out of his inner chamber.

“The pastors alongside one Ibo man were asked to change their faith to Islam like they did to other people taken as hostages. I think there was an argument by one of the pastors which gave the others some level of confidence to also resist accepting Islam.

“The Yusufiya men who were armed on that Tuesday afternoon were not comfortable with the pastors and they took one of them to the sect leader in his inner chamber. They came out later to the courtyard within the compound and cut their heads one after the other and thereafter, shouted allah akbar in wild celebration accompanied with several gun shots,” the eye witness disclosed.

He said the hostages numbering about 50 within the area of the execution of the pastors and another fair complexioned man which he could not identify, were gripped with fear as non could foretell the outcome of their stay at the enclave of the fundamentalists. He was however lucky to escape as he was freed in the night with others with a warning not to mix with kafrici (infidels).

Corroborating the account of the killing, a Senior pastor with Good News Church, Wulari Maiduguri Rev. Baba Gata Ibrahim told Daily Sun in an interview that a pastor in his church, Pastor George Orjih was beheaded on the instruction of the Boko Haram leader because the clergy man refused to accept Islam.
“An eye witness who was also captured by the Islamic militants gave us details of how the pastor was killed. He told us they were persuading him to accept Islam and he said over his dead body. He was even said to have preached Christ to Mohammed Yusuf and that reportedly angered the sect leader who then as he ordered that the pastor and others be killed immediately,” he disclosed.

The late Pastor George Orjih was said to have arrived Maiduguri last week from Jos where he was doing his Masters programme in Theology. Described as a fearless, hardworking, and intellectually sound, his care for the welfare and well being of his family allegedly contributed to his capture and eventual death.
“He was mindful of his family and their welfare. He was really out of the house but thought to go back again. That was how he was captured by the Boko Haram before he was killed. It was the very week, in fact the following day he returned from school where he was doing his Masters in Theology that he was arrested,” the senior pastor added.

He urged the government to provide adequate security for Christian in the state.
Also delivering a sermon during the funeral rites for late Rev. Sabo Yakubu, slain COCIN Church pastor, the speaker, Rev Bulus Azi urged Christians to emulate the pastors who were killed because of their refusal to betray their faith. Quoting from the bible in Revelation 7: 9-15, the regional chairman of the church told Christians to prepare to die anytime as their calling demand.

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Don't forget folks ....

Islam is a peaceful 'religion'.

Islam loves Christians.

Jihad is about Inner struggle , not holy war.

etc.... etc....

.

[007]

I blame the americans!!!!Oh yeah and orrible austrailian wine!!!