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Nigeria: Sect allegedly tries to kill local leader

09 November 2010 00:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A 65-year-old local leader attacked by followers of a radical Muslim sect confronted his assailants, wrestling away an assault rifle in a rare act of defiance against the feared group, an army general said Monday, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
Three followers of the Boko Haram sect stormed the traditional palace of Bolori district head Mohammed Mala on Sunday night, planning to kill the leader with Kalashnikov assault rifles, Brig. Gen. Hassan Ndaliman said. As one man cocked his rifle, Mala pounced on the man, pulling the rifle away and scaring the other two men into fleeing, Ndaliman said.
Soldiers and police later arrived to arrest suspect Abudullahi Mustapha, 32, who officials identified as a Boko Haram follower.
Ndaliman said the two men who fled would be apprehended by authorities patrolling the vast, dusty expanse of northeastern Nigeria, wedged between Chad and Niger on the cusp of the Sahara Desert.
"Information provided by the residents in the community could lead us and the police in apprehending the suspected assailants that had been terrorizing residents of Maiduguri and other towns and villages in the state," the brigadier general told journalists Monday.
Mala’s stand against his attackers is a rare one. Suspected sect members on motorcycle taxis have killed politicians, religious leaders and police officers at will in recent weeks in Maiduguri and nearby cities. The killings have continued, despite the federal government sending soldiers to secure checkpoints throughout the region at night.
Boko Haram â€” which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language â€” has campaigned for the implementation of strict Shariah law. Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people, is divided between the Christian-dominated south and the Muslim north. A dozen states across Nigeria’s north already have Shariah law in place, though the area remains under the control of secular state governments.
Boko Haram sect members rioted and attacked police stations and private homes in July 2009, sparking a violent police and military crackdown. In total, 700 people died.
The sect largely went underground after the attack, though rumors began to spread this summer that the group was rearming. In September, authorities say Boko Haram members engineered an attack on a federal prison in Bauchi that freed about 750 inmates â€” including imprisoned sect followers.