The terrorist sect popularly referred to as Boko Haram has carried out its greatest destruction of life and property so far: multiple attacks in three major cities in the north-east geopolitical zone of the country left about 80 people dead, worship places torched and several public buildings including a bank? vandalised.
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The three cities that were attacked between Friday and yesterday are Borno State capital Maiduguri as well as Potiskum and Damaturu in Yobe State.
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The group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Boko Haram spokesman Abul Qaqa promised that “more attacks are on the way”.
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The attacks came on the eve of the Muslim celebration of the feast of Eid al Adha.
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In its reaction, the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (SCIA) said that the perpetrators of the heinous attacks could not be Muslims or they would not have struck in a holy month and on the eve of Eid.
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Speaking to LEADERSHIP SUNDAY yesterday, a staff member of SCIA who craved anonymity said that the attacks were unfortunate and that true Muslims could not be carrying out such acts because Allah had forbidden any fighting in the holy months.
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“I am very doubtful that the people that did this are Muslims. If they are, what kind of Islam are they practising? No sane Muslim would do this. If you are fighting for God, you must first obey him and observe his commandments. The holy month must be kept holy,” he said.
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The Associated Press reported that the Yobe State commissioner of police Mr. Suleman Lawal, confirmed that 53 persons comprising 36 civilians and 17 security agents were killed in the Damaturu bomb blasts.
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But Red Cross officials and other unofficial sources put the number of the dead at over 80. They said? they were able to count over 80 corpses at a local morgue in Damaturu.
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The fighting centered around Damaturu, the capital of Yobe State, Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said. The attack started on Friday with a car bomb exploding outside a three-story building used as a military office and barracks in the city, killing many uniformed security agents.
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The gunmen then went through the town, blowing up a First Bank PLC branch and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said.
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Gunfire continued through the night as the gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, leaving at least two people dead there, witnesses said.
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Yesterday morning, people began hesitantly leaving their homes, seeing the destruction left behind, including military and police vehicles burned by the gunmen, with the burned corpses of the drivers who died in their seats.
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Bulama spoke to The Associated Press by telephone Saturday morning from a common Muslim burial ground in the city as his family buried a relative and a friend, a police officer who died after suffering a gunshot wound to the head in the fighting.
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“There’s that fear that something might possibly happen again,” he said.
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State government officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment yesterday.
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The attacks around Damaturu came after four separate bombings struck Maiduguri. One blast detonated around noon outside the El-Kanemi Theological College where parents had gathered. Police said others had entered the college grounds to attend Friday prayers at a mosque located on its campus.
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Witnesses who spoke to the AP said they saw ambulances carry away at least six wounded people from the site. Another bombing alongside a road in Maiduguri killed four people, Police Commissioner Simeon Midenda said.
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A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV attempted to enter a base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said.
The SUV couldn’t enter the gate and the explosives were detonated outside of the base, which damaged several buildings in the military’s compound, Mohammed said.
Mohammed stated that blasts occurred at three other places in Maiduguri besides the base, with no one killed. However, government officials routinely downplay such attacks in Nigeria over political considerations.
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On Saturday, a Boko Haram spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks. Using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa, he promised that “more attacks are on the way”.
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“We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop their excesses on our members and vulnerable civilians,” the spokesman said.
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His comments come as human rights activists say soldiers have beaten and killed civilians while trying to search for the sect in Maiduguri.
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Boko Haram’s attacks occurred ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son. Police had warned of violence ahead of the celebration.
Last Wednesday, police in Maiduguri said they broke up a plot to bomb the city over the holiday.
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Boko Haram apparently has split into three factions, increasing the danger for Nigeria, the AP has learned. One faction remains moderate and welcomes an end to the violence, another wants a peace agreement with rewards similar to those offered to a different militant group in 2009.
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The third faction, though, refuses to negotiate and remains the most radical. This faction is in contact with al-Qaida’s North Africa branch and likely the Somalia-based terror group al-Shabab, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity according to embassy orders.
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That sect likely is responsible for the increasingly violent and sophisticated attacks carried out in the sect’s name. In August, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital, which killed 24 people and left another 116 wounded.
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The security situation in Borno and Yobe states yesterday forced President Goodluck Jonthan to postpone his trip to his home state Bayelsa, ordering security agencies to smoke out perpetrators of the suicide bomb attempt on a military base in Maiduguri as well as another attack in Yobe State that led to the death of many.
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Presidential spokesman Dr. Reuben Abati said last night that the president decided to cancel his planned trip to Bayelsa on Friday when he heard of the bomb attacks in the two states.
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He stated that, contrary to insinuations in some quarters that the cancelations had to do with the political situation in the state, the president’s decision was informed by the need to devote more time to the search for peace in the troubled north-east states.
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Dr. Abati added that what the president was going for in Bayelsa was a social event which is also a family affair.
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“The President does not feel that he should be seen attending a wedding when such? incidents are happening and he has renewed his charge to security agencies to renew the search for those behind the dastardly acts,” Abati said. “He believes that for anyone to carry out such acts of destruction of lives at this season of peace deviates from the message of peace and love that ordinarily radiates around eid il Kabir.
It is clear that perpetrators of such acts are out on selfish agenda which cannot be allowed? to fester.”
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