Radical Islam Watch

The Islamic fundamentalists were alleged to be fighting against those who have adopted western values.

In Borno, targets of the armed sect members were the Police Armoury, the Maiduguri New Prison and the life of the commander of the joint border patrol, whose house located at the police headquarters, was still burning as at the time of filing in this report.

Out of the 154 people killed, whose bodies littered the Post Office-Airport Road, there were over 115 members of the sect that used swords, bows and arrows, sticks and petrol bombs in attacking the Police Headquarters.

The police, which were taken by surprise on how the armed sect members got entry into the Police Headquarters, burnt the house of the commander of the joint border patrol and moved to the prison, killing one of the prison warders at the gate, and set all the inmates free.

As the prison inmates fled, some militants, however, abducted and took hostage of Ahmed Silkida, the correspondent of Daily Trust, alleging that he had betrayed the sect by dressing and keeping his bearded face like them without protecting their interest of fighting the Borno State government and its security agents.

In a telephone interview with The Guardian yesterday, Silkida said: "I am right now in the hands of the sect members. You should pray that the commander would release me because they are alleging that I betrayed their mission of waging a jihad against the state government and the Izala religious group".

As at 2.00 p.m. yesterday, six hours after launching the attacks, some of the sect members who escaped the firing power of the police, however, regrouped with arms and took over the entire Abaganaram Ward where the prison is located and the State Low Cost Housing Estate.

The 10-hour Maiduguri clash between the militants and the Operation Flush II, has however, brought business and other economic activities in the state to a halt, as all the streets and roads were deserted by residents, fearing that the crisis might spread to Bulunkutu, Gomari, Customs, Abaganaram and other areas.

Besides, all markets, schools and the Musa Usman Secretariat complex that houses workers with the 18 ministries and parastatals in Maiduguri are to remain closed, awaiting a state-wide broadcast from Governor Ali Sheriff on the sects' clashes with the police.

The Guardian also learnt that the targets of the fundamentalists are government lodges, Operation Flush checkpoints in Maiduguri and Jere metropolis, Police Headquarters and leaders of the Izala religious groups and their mosques located in various parts of Maiduguri.

Confirming the killing of over 154 people, Col. Ben Ahanotu, the commander of Operation Flush II, in a telephone interview said: "Yes, we have got them and gone with their bows and arrows and sticks. The next military action against these armed religious sect, is to destroy their operational points and areas that pose serious threat to lives and property."

While 33 of the militants were nabbed at Wudil, headquarters of Wudil Local Council of Kano State, the police are yet to ascertain whether the remaining 100 arrested at the Mariri area of Kano metropolis at about 1.00 p.m. yesterday were militants or genuine members of the Izala sect who were part of an Islamic peaceful assembly, which took place last weekend in Yola.

As at 3.00 a.m. yesterday, a band of militants comprising nationals of neighbouring Chad had stormed the headquarters of the Wudil Divisional Police Station with the intent of disarming the policemen on duty.

The policemen put up stiff resistance to the fundamentalists. In the ensuing melee, the militants shot two of the policemen, including the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Sadiq Inuwa.

A contingent of mobile policemen led by Deputy Commissioner of Police, Lawal Tanko who were placed on the alert at the border post at the Bauchi and Jigawa States sprang into action and gunned down two of the militants who had removed two AK 47 rifles from the Wudil Police Station, about 28 kilometres away from Kano.

Kano police spokesman, Baba Mohammed, confirmed the incident at the Bompai Headquarters of the Kano State Police Command.

Among items paraded were knifes, cutlasses, local charms and personal belongings, including some drugs apparently put to use by the fundamentalists before unleashing mayhem on their victims.

Police Superintendent Baba disclosed that a sizeable number of the fundamentalists most of whom are teenagers, hail from Kano and Borno States, just as he expressed the resolve of the police in Kano to avert a spill over of the Bauchi crises to Kano.

A leader of the fundamentalist who carried out the attack at the Wudil Police Station, Abdulmumuni Ibrahim Mohammed, gave an insight into their motive, saying that the attacks were aimed at the elite who had embraced western values.

Mohammed, who hails from Nasarawa State and claim to have attended secondary school, also expressed opposition to the use of the 1999 Constitution to govern the country as well as urged the implementation of the Sharia legal code.

Following the crisis in Bauchi, the Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 12, Bauchi, Moses Anegbode, has described the Boko Haram as a criminal group who are parading themselves in the name of religion.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Bauchi, Anegbode said Boko Haram was a threat to peace .

The AIG disclosed that 39 of the Boko Haram were killed in a confrontation in a joint security operation last Sunday in Bauchi while 176 of them were arrested and 15 injured.

He added that a Lance Corporal in the Army and two policemen were killed in the operations against the group.

According to him, the security operatives went after members of Boko Haram after they attacked a police station in Dutse Tanshi and opened fire during attempts to arrest them at their various hideouts in the Federal Low Cost Estate and Fadama Mada areas.

Anegbode said that in Maiduguri on that same Sunday, some members of the group despite the heavy security, came to a police station on a suicide mission with three motorcycles and sped towards the gate and set it ablaze.

He stated: " They forbid anything western, yet their leader has an array of western materials in their position and their usage. Even the phone, SUVs; I wonder if they were made by him. They are notorious for kidnappings, raping, intimidation and molestation and known to be anti-establishment,"

Anegbode revealed that dangerous weapons such as AK 47, 270 rounds of live ammunition, a single-barrel gun, three locally-made single barrel-guns, two locally-made revolver pistol, five rounds of 7.66 live ammunition, 500 rounds of 7.66 mm live ammunition, and 21 live cartridges were recovered from their enclave in Fadama Mada in Bauchi metropolis.

"The implication of this is that these men are armed with sophisticated guns like pump action guns, revolver pistols, AK 47 and lar rifle recovered from them. The operation is still ongoing. We are doing mop up operation so that these items can be recovered," he added.

According to him, two bags of lethal gun powder used for making explosives, 200 detonators, over 1,000 locally fabricated plastic cylinders that could be used for manufacture of local guns were also recovered from them, describing the items as dangerous substances that could be directed at society.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) yesterday called for urgent implementation of a comprehensive reforms of the nation's intelligence community and the Nigeria police by the Federal Government to prevent the intermittent orgy of violence unleashed by religious fanatics in the country.

The human rights body in a statement endorsed by its national co-ordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, condemned the violence unleashed by the members of the Boko Haram sect in Bauchi State at the weekend even as it called for a transparent judicial commission of inquiry to unravel the remote and immediate causes of the blood-bath and the prosecution of all perpetrators.

The group traced the recurrent religious violence in the country to the total lack of political will on the part of the Federal and state governments to charge perpetrators of all the previous religious riots to court to serve as deterrent.

HURIWA blamed the failure of intelligence on the part of the Nigeria Police and the State Security Service (SSS) for the escalation in religious and ethnic motivated killings in some parts of the North, including Maiduguri and Bauchi.

Also, seven suspected members of the Taliban group were arrested along Kwami Road in Gombe, the state capital and subjected to intensive interrogation at the Police Criminal Investigation Department.

The state Police Commissioner, Joseph Ahmed Ibi, disclosed this to journalists in Gombe yesterday, saying that the suspects told the police that they were on a mission to Kwami village to see some friends, noting that after investigation, the police would be able to establish whether they were actually going to see some friends as they claimed.