KANO, Nigeria — Police have arrested 92 suspected members of a radical Islamist sect in raids after a series of attacks that killed eight people in northern Maiduguri city, a police chief said Thursday.
"We have arrested 92 suspected members of the sect in raids we carried out on many parts of the city Wednesday through Thursday in connection with yesterday's attacks, including a man in his 70s we believe is the sect's major financier," Borno state police commissioner Mohammed Jinjiri Abubakar told AFP on the phone from Maiduguri.
Eight people including three policemen were killed in five separate attacks by gunmen suspected of being Boko Haram members in the city late Wednesday, military and police officials said.
Policemen raided the house of the sect's alleged bankroller where materials linking him to the sect were found.
The materials found included chemicals used in bomb making, audio tapes of the late sect leader's preaching and machetes, Abubakar said.
Abubakar said the suspects had been taken to the police headquarters in Nigeria's capital Abuja for further interrogation.
The sect launched an uprising in Nigeria's north last year that ended with a police and military assault which left hundreds dead.
"The policemen were killed in Ruwan Zafi district of Maiduguri in an attack on a police patrol team by suspected Boko Haram sect members who also burnt down the patrol van," army spokesman lieutenant Abubakar Abdullahi told AFP.
Lawal Abdullahi, the police spokesman in Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital, also confirmed that three policemen were killed in the attack.
"We lost three men in a shootout with suspected members of the outlawed Boko Haram," he told AFP. "The suspects launched an attack on one of our patrol vehicles and burnt it. The policemen were outnumbered by the attackers."
Five civilians were killed in four other separate targeted attacks launched by motorcycle-riding gunmen in the volatile northeastern city.
In two separate attacks in the same city, suspected Boko Haram gunmen killed a policeman and retired police officer on Tuesday while three civilians suffered gunshot wounds, the police said.
That attack came barely a day after gunmen suspected to be part of a radical Islamic sect, calling itself on a website Jama?atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda?Awati Wal Jihad, claimed responsibility for Christmas eve attacks that killed dozens of people in the central Nigerian city of Jos.
The sect claimed responsibility for multiple explosions in Jos in which at least 80 people were killed in attacks and in reprisal killings.
The police said 32 people were killed in the Jos attacks.
The group also claimed to be behind the attack on three churches in Maiduguri on the same day in which six people were killed and a church was burnt down.
Boko Haram members have been blamed for a string of attacks in the north of the west African country targeting policemen and community leaders, especially in Maiduguri.
Jos is in the so-called middle-belt region between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south and has long been a hotspot of ethnic and religious friction.
Many attribute the unrest in Jos to the struggle for economic and political power between the Christian Beroms, seen as the indigenous ethnic group in the region, and the Hausa-Fulani Muslims, viewed as the more recent arrivals.
These attacks come ahead of elections set for April.

let theM be charged in INTERNATIONAL COURT

^^

that will be a big slap on the Judiciary, besides, the ICC does not have jurisdiction on terrorism

mtchewww!!

So when should we expect them to break out of jail, like last time?

They either need to be hanged or bbqed





HAPPY NEW YEAR!

They should all be lined up and summarily executed.

They should be hanged without further delay. They are rebels and deserve to die without any judiciary enquiry

They should be hanged without further delay. They are rebels and deserve to die without any judiciary enquiry

Interesting how Nigerians want people to be summarily executed without trials, why can't we hold on with our emotions, we aren't savages yet

This is a time to strengthen institutions and gather intelligence. Dont let these people die with the information we need about this sect. Its not the time for knee-jerk reactions which will ensure (like the last time they killed the leader without even extracting useful information from him).

We need to wake up to the issue of organised extremism and begin to really deal with this new REALITY in Nigeria. The security agents know nothing about the sect, that is why they are always two steps behind them, cleaning up debris and reporting on the dead, rather then news reports of planned attacks that have been FOILED BEFORE THEY COULD TAKE PLACE.

Shock:

Interesting how Nigerians want people to be summarily executed without trials, why can't we hold on with our emotions, we aren't savages yet

Tell that to those who lost their loved ones, limbs, eyes and other valuables of some sort. Did we demand for trial in the case of osisikankwu?.

aloy/emeka:

Tell that to those who lost their loved ones, limbs, eyes and other valuables of some sort. Did we demand for trial in the case of osisikankwu?.

You are still being judged by emotions, rightfully so, but be that as it may, we ought to be guarded by reason. Their is still a constitution with lay down procedures of dealing with such high hardened crimes.

How right does it sound that a country summarily executed 92 individuals without trials? what does that make us?

my friend will u keep quiet nd stop blowing grammar, the 92 boko haram deserve to die without a fair hearing.