Talibans strike again, kill policeman in Nigeria

Vanguard (Lagos)
NEWS
January 5, 2004
Posted to the web January 5, 2004
Lagos
A RADICAL Islamist group inspired by Afghanistan's Taliban movement has raided
Damaturu, Yobe State capital and killed a policeman, the state governor, Bukar
Abba Ibrahim, said yesterday. About 200 members of the Muhajirun sect stormed
the state capital on Thursday morning, firing into the air, and sacked three
police stations.
The attack follows two incidents late last month when Islamic radicals clashed
with security forces in the north, leaving one policeman and three alleged
extremists dead. The Muhajirun are thought to be mainly middle-class Nigerian
graduates inspired by the Taliban's vision of an Islamic state run in
accordance with the principles of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi current of Islam.
"This group, which call themselves Taliban, left (the northeastern city of)
Maiduguri three months ago and settled in an open area between Yobe State and
the Niger Republic," the governor told Radio Kaduna. Ibrahim said his
government had sought to persuade the group to move on after complaints from
local residents but that instead they had turned on security forces in two
violent incidents.
"On Thursday morning, they attacked some police stations here in the capital
but they were dispersed. Most of these people are children of very influential
people in our country," the governor added, without giving details. One
policeman was killed on Thursday. Another officer was killed last month at
Kanamma, 240 kilometres north of Damaturu on the nation's remote northern
frontier with Niger.
The clashes with the Muhaijirun came amid tensions in Jos, further south in
Plateau State, where a police raid against a different Islamic group last month
left three dead.

   

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