21 January 2012 Last updated at 15:50 ET


Nigeria violence: Scores dead after Kano blasts

Co-ordinated attacks by Islamist militants in the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Friday killed about 150 people, witnesses and reports say.

Hospitals are struggling to deal with the numbers of killed and injured.

A series of explosions ripped apart police buildings, passport offices and immigration centres around the city, which is now under a 24-hour curfew.

Boko Haram militants said they carried out the attacks, which would be their bloodiest assault to date.

The group has said it wants to overthrow the national government and install an Islamic state.

Its members have frequently attacked police stations and other symbols of state power, but the group has also bombed churches and killed hundreds of people - including many Muslim and Christian civilians.

President Goodluck Jonathan promised that the perpetrators would "face the full wrath of the law".

"As a responsible government, we will not fold our hands and watch enemies of democracy, for that is what these mindless killers are, perpetrate unprecedented evil in our land,' he said.







Wave of attacks

On Saturday in Kano, a city of nine million people, most of them Muslims, Red Cross teams have been collecting bodies from the streets and taking them to mortuaries.

All day long people have been streaming towards the mortuary of the main hospital in Kano to look for the bodies of loved ones so they can be taken for burial. The cars used to collect the corpses are then marked with a small tree branch - a traditional symbol showing that a body is being transported.

Mortuary workers have been struggling to cope with the large number of bodies - the majority of victims appeared to be civilians but there were some uniformed police officers among the dead as well.







The Red Cross and various Nigerian emergency response organisations have been helping to deliver wounded people to hospital and move corpses. The number of dead is likely to rise in the coming days as buildings that were blown up are searched.

A BBC reporter in Kano said he had counted 150 bodies in the mortuary of the city's main hospital.

A medical official told the AP news agency that 143 people had been killed, and another official told AFP that 162 bodies had been counted.






Boko Haram, which loosely translates from the local Hausa language as "Western education is forbidden", has been behind a string of attacks in recent years.

The group wants Islamic law across Nigeria, whose population is split between the largely Muslim north, and the south where Christianity and traditional beliefs predominate.

It first hit the headlines in 2009 when a spate of attacks by its followers on police and government buildings in the city of Maiduguri led to a crackdown in which hundreds died.

More recently, the group has launched bomb attacks on churches, drive-by shootings on government targets and other attacks across northern Nigeria, killing scores and forcing many more to flee.

But the Kano attacks appear to be the group's most deadly co-ordinated assault.

The police said in a statement that four police stations around the city, the headquarters of the State Security Service (SSS), as well as passport and immigration offices had been targeted.

There was also a shoot-out at the headquarters of the state police in the city's eastern district of Bompai, reports said.

A local man, Andrew Samuel, described the scene of one blast: "I was on the roadside and I just heard a 'boom'. As I came back, I saw the building of the police headquarters crashing down and I ran for my life."

Witnesses said the bomber who attacked one of the police stations pulled up outside the building on a motorbike, dismounted and ran inside holding a bag.

Some unconfirmed reports have claimed suicide bombers carried out some of the attacks.

The BBC's Mark Doyle, in Kano, says he has seen one police station with its roof completely burnt off, though it was not clear whether this was caused directly by an explosion or by fire.
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He says the atmosphere is nervous, and a large crowd outside the police station quickly dispersed when soldiers arrived.

Nigeria's Channels TV said in a statement that one of its reporters, Enenche Akogwu, had been killed in the attacks .

It said he had been "shot by unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram sect", outside the state government house.

The wounded were reported to include foreigners from an area near the SSS headquarters, which is home to many expatriates, particularly Lebanese and Indians.

A Boko Haram spokesman, Abul Qaqa, told journalists that it had carried out the attacks because the authorities had refused to release group members arrested in Kano.

Boko Haram is an indigenous Salafist group which only turned itself into a Salafist Jihadist group in 2009. It propagates a version of Islam that not only forbids any interaction with the Western World but it is also against the traditional Muslim establishment and the government of Nigeria. The group publicly extols its ideology despite the fact that its founder and former leader Muhammad Yusuf was himself a highly educated man who lived a lavish life and drove a Mercedes Benz.





The members of the group do not interact with the local Muslim population and have carried out assassinations in the past of any one who criticises it, including Muslim clerics.

In a 2009 BBC interview, Muhammad Yusuf, then leader of the group, rejected scientific explanation for natural phenomena, such as evaporations being the cause for rain, the theory of evolution, and the Earth being a sphere "f it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah". Before his death, Yusuf reiterated the group's objective of changing the current education system and rejecting democracy.

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Jonathan urges Boko Haram to state demands

Nigerian president says government will engage in 'dialogue' if Boko Haram identify themselves and state clear demands. 27 Jan 2012

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has challenged Boko Haram to identify themselves and state clearly their demands as a basis for talks.

"If they clearly identify themselves now and say this is the reason why we are resisting, this is the reason why we are confronting government or this is the reason why we destroy some innocent people and their properties ... then there will be a basis for dialogue," said Jonathan on Thursday.

"We will dialogue, let us know your problems and we will solve your problem but if they don't identify themselves, who will you dialogue with?"

In an interview with Reuters at the presidential villa in the capital Abuja, Jonathan said there was no doubt that Boko Haram had links with other jihadist groups outside Nigeria.

The group killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 in the first weeks of 2012 in gun and bomb attacks in Africa's top oil producer, Human Rights Watch said this week.

Boko Haram threats

Meanwhile, in a message posted on YouTube the purported leader of the group issued new threats while also saying last week's attacks in Kano were over the torture of its members. [below]

"We were responsible," a voice identified as that of suspected Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau says in audio played over a picture of him.

"I ordered it and I will give that order again and again. God gave us victory."

A purported spokesman for the group had earlier claimed responsibility for coordinated bombings and shootings on January 20 in Kano which left at least 185 people dead.

Police stations were the main targets.

Unclear demands

The authenticity of the message could not be independently verified, but the photo matched up with previous ones said to be of Shekau and the voice was similar to earlier recordings.

Boko Haram, whose name means "western education is sinful," was formed in 2003 in the remote, northeastern city of Maiduguri. It launched an uprising against the government in 2009 that security forces crushed in days of fighting with the sect that killed around 800 people.

Its leader Mohammed Yusuf was captured and died in police custody during those battles, triggering vows of revenge from other members of the sect which they now seem to be honoring in attacks on security forces and authority figures.

The group's members have said they want to impose Sharia law across Nigeria, although Jonathan doubted they had clear aims. "There is no clear thing to say: this is what we want," he said.

Suicide Bombing Kills Dozens in Nigeria ASSOCIATED PRESS April 8, 2012

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A suicide car bomber struck on a busy road Sunday morning after apparently turning away from attacking Nigerian churches holding Easter services, killing at least 38 people in a huge blast that rattled a city long at the center of religious, ethnic and political violence in the nation.

The blast struck Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna state, leaving charred motorcycles and debris strewn across a major road in the city where many gather to eat at informal restaurants and buy black market gasoline. Nearby hotels and homes had their windows blown out and roofs torn away by the force of the explosion, which engulfed a group of motorcycle taxis.

The explosion badly damaged two nearby churches during an Easter service. Witnesses said it appeared the explosive-laden car attempted to go into the compound of the churches before it detonated, but was blocked by barriers in the street and turned away by a security guard as the police approached.

“We were in the holy communion service and I was exhorting my people, and all of a sudden we heard a loud noise that shattered all our windows and doors, destroyed our fans and some of our equipment in the church,” Pastor Joshua Raji said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and the authorities said they had no immediate suspects, though a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has claimed similar attacks in the past. Some fear the bombing could further inflame tensions around Kaduna, a region on the dividing line between Nigeria’s largely Christian south and Muslim north.

At least 38 people were killed in the blast, said Abubakar Zakari Adamu, a spokesman for the Kaduna state Emergency Management Agency. Others suffered serious injuries and were receiving treatment at local hospitals.

A witness, Augustine Vincent, said he was riding a motorcycle just behind the car when it exploded. “God saw our heart and saved us,” he said.

Churches have been increasingly targeted by violence on holy days in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people. A Christmas Day suicide bombing in Madalla, near Nigeria’s capital, killed at least 44 people.

In his Easter speech at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI mentioned the continuing violence in Nigeria. Catholic churches have been targeted in previous attacks.

“To Nigeria, which in recent times has experienced savage terrorist attacks, may the joy of Easter grant the strength needed to take up anew the building of a society which is peaceful and respectful of the religious freedom of its citizens,” he said.

Britain’s Africa Minister Henry Bellingham condemned the attack, calling it a “horrific act.”

Kaduna, on Nigeria’s dividing line between its largely Christian south and Muslim north, was at the heart of postelection violence in April 2011. Mobs armed with machetes and poison-tipped arrows took over streets of Kaduna and the state’s rural countryside after election officials declared President Goodluck Jonathan the winner. Followers of his main opponent, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim, quickly alleged the vote had been rigged, though observers largely declared the vote fair.

Across the nation, at least 800 people died in that rioting, Human Rights Watch said. In the time since, heavily armed soldiers have remained on guard on roadways throughout Kaduna. In December, an explosion at an auto parts market in Kaduna killed at least seven people. Though authorities said it came from a leaking gas cylinder, the Nigerian Red Cross later said in an internal report the blast came from a bomb.

In February, bombs exploded at two major military bases near the city, injuring an unknown number of people.

AP/ February 10, 2013

"Nigerian Taliban" blamed for killing of 3 North Korean doctors

POTISKUM, NigeriaAssailants in northeastern Nigeria killed three North Korean doctors, beheading one of the physicians, in the latest attack on health workers in a nation under assault by a radical Islamic sect, officials said Sunday.

The deaths Saturday night of the doctors in Potiskum, a town in Yobe state long under attack by the sect known as Boko Haram, which some call the "Nigerian Taliban," comes after gunmen killed at least nine women administering polio vaccines in Kano, the major city of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.

The two attacks raise new questions over whether the extremist sect, targeted by Nigeria's police and military, has picked a new soft target in its guerrilla campaign of shootings and bombings across the nation.

The attackers apparently struck at the North Korean doctors inside their home, said Dr. Mohammed Mamman, chairman of the Hospital Managing Board of Yobe State. The North Korean doctors had no security guards at their residence and typically traveled around the city via three-wheel taxis without a police escort, officials said.

By the time soldiers arrived at the house, they found the doctors' wives cowering in a flower bed outside their home. At the property, they found the corpses of the men, all bearing what appeared to be machete wounds.

An Associated Press journalist later saw the North Korean doctors' corpses before they were moved to nearby Bauchi state for safe keeping. Two of the men had their throats slit. Attackers beheaded the other doctor.

The doctors lived in a quiet neighborhood filled with other modest homes in the town. There wasn't room to house them at the hospital, where they would have had some security protection, Mamman said.

Initially, doctors at the hospital who worked with the physicians identified them as being from South Korea, while police identified the dead as being from China. Ultimately, Mamman of the health board told journalists those killed were from North Korea and had lived in the state since 2005 as part of a technical exchange program between the state and the North Korean government.

U.S. Army to train Africa forces in anti-terror
Nigeria church attacks, reprisals kill nearly 100

There are more than a dozen other North Korean doctors posted to the state under the program, as well as engineers, Mamman said. He said all will receive immediate protection from security forces.

"It is very unfortunate," Mamman said of the killings.

Yobe state police commissioner Sanusi Rufai confirmed the attack took place and said officers had begun an investigation. Rufai said officers had made 10 arrests after the killings, though police in Nigeria routinely round up those living around the site of a crime, whether or not there is any evidence suggesting their complicity.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, though suspicion fell on the Boko Haram sect.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege," has been attacking government buildings and security forces over the last year and a half. In 2012 alone, the group was blamed for killing at least 792 people, according to an AP count.

The sect, which typically speaks to journalists in telephone conference calls at times of its choosing, could not be reached for comment Sunday. In recent months, however, Boko Haram has not claimed any attacks, raising questions about whether the shadowy sect that already had a loose command-and-control structure had splintered into smaller, independently operating terror groups.

Since late 2011, Potiskum, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of Nigeria's central capital, Abuja, has been targeted by Boko Haram fighters in attacks. The attacks killed dozens at a time and brought the deployment of a heavy contingent of police officers and soldiers to the town.

For the last few weeks, however, Potiskum has been quiet. Soldiers still mount a series of checkpoints throughout the town, where in the past the military has put neighborhoods in lockdown and launched door-to-door searches for militants.

Oil-rich Nigeria, home to more than 160 million people, maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea, which faces international criticism over its nuclear weapon program. In October, a delegation of Nigerian officials led by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Viola Onwuliri visited North Korea.

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency did not immediately report the three doctors' deaths Sunday. In Pyongyang earlier Sunday, North Koreans marked the Lunar New Year with pilgrimages to the giant statues of their late leaders.

Foreigners have been targets for such attacks in the region in the past. Several Chinese construction workers have been shot dead in recent months around the northeastern city of Maiduguri. That prompted the Chinese government to contact Nigerian officials and ask them to provide better protection for their citizens.

The killings of the doctors come after the attack Friday on polio vaccinators in Kano, northern Nigeria's most populous city. No group has yet claimed responsibility for that attack either, though it follows alleged Boko Haram attacks now focusing on softer targets, like lightly guarded mobile phone towers. Those mobile phone tower attacks have limited the ability of residents and security forces to call for help during attacks, as well as have cut the government's ability to use the signals to track suspected militants.

In a statement Friday, President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the killings of the polio workers and promised that efforts to cut child mortality wouldn't be stopped by "mindless acts of terrorism."

"While the government will continue to do everything possible to track down and apprehend agents of terrorism in the country, the president has directed that enhanced security measures be put in place immediately for health workers in high-risk areas," the statement read.

Despite that promise, however, attackers were able to kill the North Korean doctors and apparently slip away. Reuben Abati, a presidential spokesman, did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.

31 March 2013 Last updated at 14:48 ET

Nigerian troops say they have killed 14 suspected members of the Islamist rebel group Boko Haram, in a raid on a building in the northern city of Kano.

A compound housing members of the Islamic terror group, who were preparing for their planned Easter celebration attack was invaded by the JTF this morning.

A soldier was killed in the raid, and a potential suicide bomber was arrested in a car laden with explosives, a military spokesman said.

Security has increased amid fears for the safety of Christians over Easter.

Hundreds of people have been killed since Boko Haram fighters stepped up their campaign in recent years.

The military said the group had been planning an Easter Sunday attack in the city.

"This operation was conducted following a tip-off from our intelligence," military spokesman Iliyasu Abbah said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

Residents reported gunfire and explosions early on Sunday, but there has been no independent confirmation of the casualties.

Kano has seen a series of attacks blamed on Boko Haram, including a suicide bombing on 19 March - apparently aimed at Christians - which left more than 20 people dead.

The group's deadliest attack so far occurred in the city in January 2012, when a series of bombings and shootings killed at least 185 people.

Boko Haram says its members are fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.

The group has been blamed for the deaths of some 1,400 people in central and northern Nigeria since 2010.

It is believed also to have a presence in Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer. It is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.

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