Muslim Mobs, Seeking Vengeance, Attack Christians in Nigeria

nytimes.com ^ | May 13, 2004 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[Destro]

Muslim Mobs, Seeking Vengeance, Attack Christians in Nigeria

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 13, 2004

KANO, Nigeria, May 12 - Muslim mobs brandishing machetes and clubs attacked Christians in the streets of Kano on Wednesday as security forces struggled to quell a two-day rampage to avenge a massacre of hundreds of Nigerian Muslims.

The police confirmed that at least 30 had been killed in strife engulfing Kano in northern Nigeria. Thousands of people, most of them belonging to the city's minority Christian population, cowered in army barracks and police stations as mobs attacked people outside. Witnesses said dozens more had been killed.

"I saw them put an old tire on his neck and set him ablaze," said Barry Owoyemi, 30, of a dead neighbor. Mr. Owoyemi, a Christian, was taken to safety by police officers who fired their guns in the air to scare away the attackers.

The police said they had been ordered to shoot rioters on sight.

The rampage exploded Tuesday after thousands of Muslims protested the killing of as many as 600 Muslims by a predominantly Christian ethnic group last week in Yelwa, a town in central Nigeria.

The latest rioting threatened to prolong the violence. On Wednesday, in what was apparently a response to Muslim attacks, a group of young Christians in Kano fired shotguns at groups of Muslim men accused of torching houses.

"The Kano situation is an unfortunate development and just a reverberation of what happened in Yelwa," said Remi Oyo, a spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Mr. Obasanjo's election in 1999 started a brittle civilian government after 15 years of oppressive military rule and aggravated long-simmering ethnic, religious and communal tensions. Fighting in Nigeria, Africa's most-populous country, has since killed more than 10,000 people.

Mr. Obasanjo, a Christian and a former military junta leader, ordered security agencies on Wednesday to "put a permanent end" to the violence, Ms. Oyo said, without elaborating.

The police commissioner in Kano, Abdul Ganiyu Daudu, confirmed that 30 people had been killed. Rioters were burning buildings and blocking residents from escaping, he said.

Boniface Ibekwe, a leader of minority Christian Ibo-speakers in Kano, asked the police in the presence of journalists to "stop this killing today or give us six months to leave Kano peacefully."

On Wednesday evening, security forces fired shots and tear gas into the air to disperse crowds before a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

On Tuesday, Kano's most influential cleric started the Muslim protest at the town's main mosque, telling protesters that the Yelwa killings were part of a Western conspiracy against followers of Islam.

The attacks on Yelwa, on May 2 and 4 by ethnic Tarok Christians, left 500 to 600 people dead in the largely Muslim, Hausa-speaking town, said a Red Cross official who had traveled there. Nigerian officials, who routinely minimize violence to avoid inciting revenge attacks, put the death toll at half that.

In February, Muslim militants were blamed in the deaths of almost 50 people in Yelwa, including Christians taking refuge in a church.

Many of Nigeria's 126 million people, split almost evenly between Muslims and Christians, live together peacefully. But religious and ethnic enmities and competition between farmers and herders for fertile lands cause numerous deadly outbursts.

[Destro]

Same pattern repeated all over he world - Kosovo - Bosnia - Israel - Russia, USA, etc.

The Muslims attack the Christians - the Christians fight back- this of course insults the Muslims who then seek "vengeance". How many times I had to listen to attacks on Serbian Christians in Kosovo described as "revenge killings".

[BykrBayb]

Muslims seek revenge against Christians for not dying in large enough numbers.

[FITZ]

When I was in college, Nigerians were telling us that we were making a big mistake letting muslims into our country even to study and told of horrible things going on in their own country with them. It seems that killing people in Africa gets pretty much ignored, over two million Sudanese Christians and animists were slaughtered by muslims and the media almost didn't report on it at all.

[beaversmom]

In February, Muslim militants were blamed in the deaths of almost 50 people in Yelwa, including Christians taking refuge in a church.

This little ditty at the end may be a clue as to when and where this latest outburst really began.

[Destro]

Sadly, when has the USA ever sided with a Christian people over a Muslim one? In every-and I do mean EVERY-case of American foreign policy when there was a conflict between Muslims and Christians the USA HAS ALWAYS sided with the Muslims.

[Destro]

The "outbursts" began when the Nigerian Muslims imposed Sharia law on Christian minorities. Allah forbid Christians resist there place.

[Patriot62]

[ambrose]

I'm disgusted to this day for what Clinton did to Serbia.

[MediaMole]

On Tuesday, Kano's most influential cleric started the Muslim protest at the town's main mosque, telling protesters that the Yelwa killings were part of a Western conspiracy against followers of Islam.

OK, tell me again how Islam is a religion of peace.

[Destro]

Ask our president that.

[Travis McGee]

We're going to find out, sooner or later,

If Abdul will pray, to a glowing crater.

[FITZ]

Reagan had one of the best policies when he armed the Contras --- those were people willing to defend themselves, they only needed the means. We should help people who want to fight for their freedom.

[ladyinred]

No one gets it. These Islamic terrorists intend to take over the world for Allah. This isn't just about terror, it is about their religion and we must stop them everywhere.

[Bobby777]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1928660053/qid=1084431420/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0523493-8363167?v=glance&s=dvd

[NRA2BFree]

On Tuesday, Kano's most influential cleric started the Muslim protest at the town's main mosque, telling protesters that the Yelwa killings were part of a Western conspiracy against followers of Islam.

The world would be a lot better off if ALL of the clerics were killed. Where is the UN when these things are happening? </ sarcasm>

[Terridan]

In 1977, a Nigerian team mate told me the same thing. The Muslims were infliltrating countries world wide for the ultimate Jihad. I had no idea that we, the USA, would be facing them head on today. Truely, world war three.

[weegee]

Will CAIR denouce this the way they denounced the Nick Berg video?

[weegee]

Truely, world war three.

World War IV. WWIII was the Cold War. This one may run a little hotter.

[weegee]

Well they are contained in a group labelled "DANGER!!!"

[spetznaz]

Actually almost anyone who has experienced Islam outside the US can tell you the same thing. It is not benign ....what Islamic societies say in the US to be abberations, for example when some Islamonut decapitates a person, is in reality not far off. Go to Israel and try telling an Israeli that Islam is misunderstood. Go to Kosovo and have some American muslim tell those people that the essence of Islam is peace. Let some liberal (or otherwise) politician go to the Sudan and try to convince slaves in a slave-train, shackles and all, that Islam has been 'hijacked' and listen to what those slaves say.

Islam either has some of the best PR people (it doesn't since they are always killing people left right and center), or we are so willing to pull the wool over our own eyes that we act oblivious to some things.

The very meaning of the word 'Islam' is 'submission.' Submission to Allah. And what if you do not submit to Allah? Well, in the US brand of Islam you live in harmony; but outside our borders that is not the case. And every now and then, as it did on 9-11, those guys will come a-visiting and show us the true face of Islam. And as they did, and when they do again, you'll see people continue saying it is an abberation, the work of a murderous few in the name of a peaceful religion.

The funny thing is that you do not see Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, Daoists etc etc etc on the TV every other day committing some mindless atrocity. Hence, how come 'abberations' don't occur with these other religions?

9-11 was a warning of what was to come if we continued duping ourselves to what the true threat is. And no, it is not in the form of Islamic radicals! That is only a symptom ....and no matter how many we kill the problem, the real disease, will always be there. The root cause is Islamic Radicalism. Perpetuated by Saudi Wahhabism and finances, Pakistani madrassas, and the clerics who spread the 'word' from Indonesia to Benin. We need to continue what we are doing, that is killing the 'students.' But we also need to start destroying the 'universities,' even when those 'universities' claim they are our allies.