Maiduguri: 'Boko Haram' attacks Nigeria police stations
Family on motorbike in Maiduguri - file photo Motorbikes are a popular mode of transport but have been banned at night in Maiduguri to stop attacks

At least five people have been killed after police stations were attacked in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, hospital sources say.

The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida in the city says there were at least three explosions, while gunfire rang out in what is believed to be the latest attack by the Boko Haram Islamist sect.

Its members have killed dozens of police officers and politicians in the city in the past year.

It wants to overthrow Nigeria's state.

It believes that Western education is wrong.
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Maiduguri: Nigeria's city of fear
Islamists claim Nigeria attacks
In pictures: Aftermath of July 2009 uprising

In 2009, hundreds of its supporters were killed in Maiduguri after they attacked police stations.

The latest raids come a day after the sect was accused of killing a cleric from a different Muslim tradition who had criticised it.

Ibrahim Birkuti was shot dead outside his home in the town of Biu, some 200km (120 miles) south of Maiduguri.

Like previous victims of Boko Haram, he was killed by a gunman riding a motorbike.

Last week, Boko Haram told the BBC it had carried out a series of bombings after President Goodluck Jonathan's inauguration.

A sect spokesman said it was also responsible for killing the brother of the Shehu of Borno, one of Nigeria's most important Islamic leaders.

The police have made hundreds of arrests and even banned motorbikes at night but have not been able to stop the violence.

All this seems like the opening shots of war.

'Boko Haram' gunmen kill Nigerian Muslim cleric Birkuti
Street scene in Maiduguri Motorbikes have been banned at night in Maiduguri in a bid to stop the attacks

A gunman believed to be from the Boko Haram Muslim sect has shot dead a prominent cleric from a rival sect in northern Nigeria.

Ibrahim Birkuti has criticised Boko Haram for killing dozens of security agents and politicians in recent months near the city of Maiduguri.

Like most of the other victims, he was shot dead by a man riding a motorbike, witnesses say.

Hundreds of Boko Haram supporters died during an uprising in 2009.
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Maiduguri: Nigeria's city of fear
Islamists claim Nigeria attacks
In pictures: Aftermath of July 2009 uprising

They attacked police stations in Maiduguri but were defeated and their leader was killed.

The sect campaigns against Western education and is also known locally as the Taliban, after the Afghan group, with which it shares some beliefs.

Mr Birkuti was from the Saudi Arabian-inspired Wahabbi group, which has been gaining ground in the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria in recent years.

He had been one of the most prominent clerics to criticise Boko Haram in Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital.

A police spokesman told the BBC he was killed outside his house in the town of Biu, some 200km (120 miles) south of Maiduguri.

"A gunman riding a motorcycle stopped outside the house and brought out a gun from under his shirt and shot him twice at close range before fleeing," Babagana Hanafi, Birkuti's neighbour for 15 years told the AFP news agency.

Last week, Boko Haram told the BBC it had carried out a series of bombings after President Goodluck Jonathan's inauguration last week.

A sect spokesman said it was also responsible for killing the brother of the Shehu of Borno, one of Nigeria's most important Islamic leaders.

In Maiduguri, the police have made hundreds of arrests and even banned motorbikes at night but have not been able to stop the violence.

If the craziness remains in Maiduguri and they are killing their fellow Muslims, then it's all good I'm happy. The  fewer of them the better for Nigeria.

this igbos don start again

i was in borno last month and i asked evryone if boko haram exist , it is a no no

nigeria is not at war at least not in the north

op u are an ideeiot

^^^ I could have sworn you started a thread two weeks ago announcing your retirement from NL.

@ Alj harem

I guess u have been sleeping, So all this violence and people getting killed in Northern Nigeria is just fiction. Do u know how wars start or u think it is like u see in the movies. Anyway, u are not a serious person,

alj_harem:

this igbos don start again

i was in borno last month and i asked evryone if boko haram exist , it is a no no

nigeria is not at war at least not in the north

op u are an ideeiot

OgidiBoy:

^^^ I could have sworn you started a thread two weeks ago announcing your retirement from NL.

Alji Harem

Retire from Nairaland, I dey laugh oooooo! I wait to see the day.

The type of News u get from Nigeria dis days is more like libya and all them middle esast countries at war. May god save that country,

We should know be 2015 as predicted by the USA.

I've been hearing bomb blasts, killing of police officers, yet troops are yet to be deployed there. JTF will not go and fight. They are in Niger Delta doing bunkery

The steady trickle of news reports from Nigeria's northern Islamic hotbed, ranging from multiple bomb blasts, to seemingly random ambushes of law enforcement and military personnel, must not be dismissed as the usual post election civil disorder of the sort fairly common in the Third World.

Multiple, co-ordinated bomb blasts, targetted at civilians and service personnel alike, are THE hallmark of BinLaden's Al Queda terror network.   Optimistically predicting that such handy weapons of terror will be employed exclusively in northern Nigeria would be premature, particularly when the lax security situation throughout the Nigerian federation is considered.  Equally of note, the use of motorcycle ride-by shooters in Maiduguri, northern Nigeria, draws inspiration from the preferred mode of transport used by Columbia's prolific and seldom apprehended hit-men.  

While events currently unfolding in the northern Nigerian Islamic hinterlands of Maiduguri, Sokoto and Kano may be regarded by southern Nigerians as being of purely academic significance, those conditions of anarchy that[i] do [/i] prevail in the north greatly increase the odds of genocidal attacks against the Christian minorities that generally reside in socially segregated enclaves dotting Islamic northern cities, but whose tribal origins, language and allegiance ultimately lie in southern Nigeria.

Among other dove-tailed contributory factors, the 1967 onset of the Nigeria/Biafra civil war was hastened by spreading sectarian genocides of southern Igbo populations resident in the Muslim north of the country.  To prevent the infernal roots roots of the devil's war fungus from gaining a foothold in Nigeria once again, President Johnny Goodluck's military advisers should recommend boots and light armor on the ground wherever anarchy erupts, from the shores of the heaving Atlantic Ocean, to the remotest camel-herding hamlet that happens to lie within Nigeria's territorial boundaries.

Media propaganda

Abuja blast hits Nigeria police headquarters
Smoke rising from bombing near Nigeria's Abuja police headquarters, 16 June 2011 The blast was heard across Nigeria's capital city
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Nigeria - Troubled Giant

Mapping the divides
Anxiety over poll fallout
Jos: Neighbours are enemies
Maiduguri: City of fear

A powerful explosion has hit the Nigerian police headquarters in the capital, Abuja, officials say.

"The police force headquarters has been bombed, everywhere is bombed," deputy police spokesman Yemi Ajayi told AFP.

An emergency official said a suspected suicide bomber had died in the blast.

A Red Cross worker told Reuters other bodies were being evacuated from the scene, from where a large plume of smoke can been seen rising. No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

However, Islamist group Boko Haram has recently been targeting police and government officials.

The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Lagos says for the Nigerian authorities, the attack is an embarrassing strike at the very heart of their security establishment.

Officials say the explosion took place in the car park of the police headquarters.

"A suspected suicide bomber died in the incident. Many vehicles were destroyed," Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency told the AFP news agency.

Residents say the explosion was heard across the city.
Inauguration bombing

"My windows were shaking and I heard the loud noise. I saw smoke coming up," Reuters news agency quotes one witness as telling a local television station.

An eyewitness told the BBC Hausa Service that he heard two explosions and saw more than 30 dead bodies and about 40 vehicles destroyed.

A bus commuter who saw the blast told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme: "All of a sudden there was this loud explosion. Everybody was scared and people began to run around."
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He said police and Red Cross officials had rushed to the scene, and had moved people away from the area.

"We are evacuating the dead bodies, it is too early for us to judge how many. Our priority is to treat the living casualties right now," a Red Cross spokesman told Reuters.

Most of Boko Haram's attacks have been in the northern city of Maiduguri.

But the group said it was behind a series of bombings that took place hours after President Goodluck Jonathan's inauguration last month.

On Tuesday, Nigeria's police chief promised to decisively deal with the group by sending more troops and equipment to the north, declaring they would be finished within a few months.

The group accuses Nigeria's government of being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to overthrow the state and impose Islamic law on the country.

It has killed dozens of people, mostly shot by gunmen riding motorbikes, in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Last year, officials blamed two explosions in Abuja during celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of Nigeria's independence on militants from the oil-rich Niger Delta around Port Harcourt.

Gej should do something about this, wat is going on with this Hausa for God sake. I done fade up.

So terrorism has finally been embraced in the North as a religion. Now internationally Nigerians have been known as suiciders. If anything, the black man could boost of never getting this low but now Boko Haram have taken that Pride from us.

Everything in Nigeria today sounds the early warning of an eminent civil war but the government don't see it Only America saw this coming and have offered GEJ help that he refused talking nonsense about Nigeria's security being able to handle the security situation. I hope he has had a second thought after today for all our sake. 

Nigeria Boko Haram Islamists 'bomb Maiduguri drinkers'
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Maiduguri: Nigeria's city of fear

A bomb attack in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Maiduguri has killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens, security sources say.

They say they believe the attack, which occurred in a beer garden, was carried out by the Islamist sect Boko Haram.

The group wants to establish an Islamic government in Nigeria.

It has carried out a number of bombings in north-eastern Nigeria, as well as an attack on police headquarters in the capital Abuja earlier this month.

Gunmen on two motorcycles attacked a packed beer garden late on Sunday, officials said.

"The attackers believed to be Boko Haram members threw bombs and fired indiscriminate gun shots on a packed tavern at Dala Kabompi neighbourhood, killing at least 25 people and seriously injuring around 30 others," an unnamed police officer told the AFP news agency.
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At The Scene
Bilkisu Babangida BBC News, Maiduguri

The open-air beer garden is in a beautiful setting alongside a river and near a thriving market.

But the explosion has turned it into ash, with smoke still billowing out of the garden. There are charred motorbikes and empty beer bottles everywhere.

Worst of all are the bodies - burnt beyond recognition. At first, I did not realise they were human remains at all.

People are just standing around the blast site shaking their heads and grieving. One man told me he had not heard from three of his friends. He fears they have all been killed.

This explosion does not only affect Nigeria, but also neighbouring Chad and Niger. Many citizens from the two countries visit the market to buy goods or to trade. There is concern that some of them, including children, may have died in the market.

Eyewitness Emmanuel Okon told AFP: "I just heard a loud bang followed by sporadic shootings and plumes of black smoke filled the area with people screaming and running in all directions."

The police have not officially said how many people died in the attack but correspondents say that if 25 people have been killed, it would be the most deadly attack yet carried out by Boko Haram.

The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida in Maiduguri says there is a mood of fear in the city, with many people staying indoors as they are afraid of being caught up in an attack.

Gunmen believed to be from Boko Haram also staged two attacks in the town of Gamboru-Ngala, in Borno state near the border with Chad, on Sunday:

At least one person was killed after shots were fired at the funeral of a local politician, who had been killed by suspected Boko Haram fighters on Saturday, witnesses told the BBC
An Islamic scholar was also shot dead

The group has killed dozens of people, mainly security officers and politicians, in Borno state over the past year.

Earlier this month, the group said it was behind the bombing of the national police headquarters in the capital, Abuja.

It has also said it carried out attacks on the inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan in May.

The group's trademark has been the use of gunmen on motorbikes.

A Christian preacher, a Catholic church, Muslim clerics who have criticised Boko Haram, and last week, a nurse playing cards, have also been targeted.

Its leader Mohammed Yusuf and several hundred of his supporters were killed by security forces in Maiduguri in 2009 after the group attacked police stations.

Are you in Nigeria? What is your reaction to this attack? You can send us your comments using the form below.

News just in dat Custom Office have been Bombed in Maiduguri. A War has been declared alright.

otokx:

Media propaganda

So which part of all this has been media propoganda? Na craze dey do una sha.

Fresh airrr

I can't blame Jonathan for these crazy Northerners.

These people only know violence. They would do this with any president who hails from the South.

^^ OBJ hailed from the South we never had these bombing

Its simply the cluelessness of GEJ thats on trial here

I fear for Nigeria. Jonathan should start Amnesty for bokoharam

dayokanu:

^^ OBJ hailed from the South we never had these bombing

Its simply the cluelessness of GEJ thats on trial here

OBJ was a pawn of the NORTH.

ZnO aka ohsis, old Grandmama like you no dey shame?

As if we were not already aware of your hate towards the north and islam, even before this whole thing started. Na so person go follow you enter gutter.shiooorrr.

Ileke-IdI:

ZnO aka ohsis, old Grandmama like you no dey shame?

As if we were not already aware of your hate towards the north and islam, even before this whole thing started. Na so person go follow you enter gutter.shiooorrr.

aka aloy emeka, ramon, Nchara, Adeliade, Akin-Egba, omo nbagtim, Adejoro etc

jobless person

^^ and u are their chairman for joblessness.