MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, (Reuters) – Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua said yesterday that security forces would hunt down remnants of a radical Muslim sect behind days of clashes which killed at least 150 people and displaced thousands.
Supporters of a militant Islamic preacher armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs have attacked churches, police stations, prisons and government buildings in parts of the mostly-Muslim north in recent days.
The violence was triggered when some members of the group called Boko Haram, which wants a wider adoption of Islamic sharia law across Africa’s most populous nation, were arrested on Sunday in Bauchi state.
Unrest spread to the northern states of Kano, Yobe and Borno, whose capital Maiduguri is home to the group’s leader, Mohammed Yusuf, and has seen the worst violence.
“The situation has been contained in Bauchi and Yobe. The bad situation we have now is in Borno where the leader of the group is residing … We are going to launch an operation, a main operation to flush them out,” Yar’Adua told reporters after meeting security chiefs and state governors.
