A fresh surge of violence between Islamist militants and security forces in northern Nigeria has left at least 38 people dead, officials said on Wednesday.
The fighting underlines fears of religious instability in the region, months after an uprising by the Boko Haram sect — so-called Nigerian Taliban — was crushed, resulting in hundreds of lives being lost.
There were conflicting reports about the cause of the latest clashes, which happened in a low-cost housing area in the northern city of Bauchi.
The BBC said they came after open-air preaching by members of a radical Islamist sect known as Kala Kato, or Giants of the Living, alarmed residents, who complained to the authorities.
Such preaching was banned in the state after an uprising by Boko Haram in July. Fighting sparked by a Boko Haram attack on a police station in Bauchi left more than 700 people dead.
Mohammed Barau, a Bauchi state police spokesperson, said the trouble began with an internal dispute in which members of the Kata Kalo sect accused each other of making their leader gravely ill.
Fighting spilled into the street and sect members attacked a military unit, he said.
Officials said the militants were armed with spears and arrows, while other reports said they had machetes and cutlasses.
They said at least one soldier and two bystanders, as well as the sect’s leader, Malam Badamasi, died in the violence.
Atikur Kafur, the Bauchi state police chief, said: ”All in all, 38 people were killed including a soldier and two innocent neighbours. Among those killed is the leader of the sect.
”We made 20 arrests, including nine adults and 11 juveniles, while 14 were injured.”
Kafur said ”bomb-making tools and explosives [and] two AK-47 rifles with several rounds of ammunition” had been found at the sect leader’s premises.
A large cache of swords, daggers and gunpowder was also recovered.
Kala Kato has been described as a non-conformist Islamist sect made up of poor tradesmen, labourers and other working people.
An uprising by its members in the northern city of Kano in 1980, and another in Yola in 1992, claimed thousands of lives.
There have been periodic bouts of religious violence in Nigeria over recent years.
The country is roughly divided into a predominantly Muslim north and a Christian south, but the unrest has generally been motivated by rivalry over resources or local politics.
The Nigerian security forces faced allegations of a draconian and overzealous response to the July uprising, most notably in connection with the death of Mohammed Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader.
Nigerian police said he had been fatally wounded while trying to avoid capture, but the commander of the army operation said he had personally captured Yusuf alive and handed him over to the police.
Human Rights Watch in Nigeria called for an investigation into the killing of Yusuf, calling it ”extrajudicial” and ”illegal”. – guardian.co.uk