Militants Attack Nigerian Police Stations ("African Taliban" kill six)

Associated Press | September 22, 2003

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MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Islamic militants fighting to create a Taliban-style state in northern Nigeria launched their first attacks since January, assaulting two police stations in the northeast and killing six people, police said Wednesday.

At least 20 armed men attacked the two stations Monday night in Bama and Gwoarza - towns 25 miles apart in Borno state, said state police commissioner Ade Adekanye.

Two civilians and four police officers, including the commander of the Bama station, were killed. In Gwoarza, assailants also took four civilians hostage, Adekanye said.

Local vigilantes rushed to assist outnumbered policemen during the attack on Gwoarza, forcing militants to retreat to hills near the border with neighboring Cameroon. Security forces were tracking them, Borno state spokesman Adamu Jiri said.

Militants of Nigeria's radical Al-Sunna wal Jamma sect, comprised mainly of university students seeking to create a Taliban-style state in Africa's most populous nation, launched their first wave of attacks on New Year's Eve, targeting several police stations in northeastern Yobe state.

As violence continued in January, President Olusegun Obasanjo's government launched a crackdown on the 200-member group, whose name in Arabic means "Followers of Mohammed's Teachings," killing at least 20 and arresting more than 40 others.

Some of those who remained at large regrouped to avenge the deaths of their colleagues in Yobe, Adekanye said.

Though the sect lacks popular support, theirs was the first armed push for a strict Islamic regime in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north since 12 states in the region - including Yobe and Borno - began adopting the Islamic Shariah legal code in 2000.

Nigeria, a nation of more than 126 million people, consists of a majority-Muslim north and a heavily Christian south and is frequently rocked by sectarian violence. That violence has killed thousands of people since 1999.