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Nigeria cracks down after attacks

The bodies of the dead lined dusty streets in three villages south of the regional capital of Jos. At least 200 bodies had been counted by Sunday afternoon. However, on Monday Dan Manjang, an adviser to the Plateau State government, put the death toll at 500. "We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act," he said.

The bodies of children tangled with each other in a local morgue, including a diaper-clad toddler. Another young victim appeared to have been scalped, while others had severed hands and feet. One woman victim in the morgue appeared to have been stripped below the waist, but later covered by a strip of black cloth.

Jos has been under a dusk-til-dawn curfew enforced by the military since January's religious-based violence. It was not clear how the attackers managed to elude the military curfew early Sunday.
Nigerian authorities have arrested nearly a hundred people in connection with attacks near the central city of Jos that killed more than 500 people.
Police and soldiers surrounded the village of Dogo Nahawa, about 15km south of Jos, as survivors buried the dead in mass graves on Monday.
Residents said herders from nearby hills attacked their village at about 3am (02:00GMT) on Sunday, shooting into the air before using machetes to cut down those who came out of their homes.
At least two other villages nearby were also targeted in an area close to where sectarian clashes killed hundreds of people in January.

Al Jazeera correspondent quoted police as saying that the attackers were Muslim Hausa-Fulani herders while the victims were mainly Christians from the Borom community.
But she added that while many people would view the violence in a religious context, people she had spoken to said the violence was about indigenous groups, who are mainly Christian, and migrants and settlers, mainly from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north, competing for access to resources.
The latest violence in the centre of Africa's most populous nation comes at a time of uncertainty for the country, with Goodluck Jonathan, the acting president, trying to assert his authority while Umaru Yar'Adua, the president, remains too sick to govern.
The situation is a test of Jonathan's ability to show that he has the power to deploy the police and army as commander-in-chief, and many people will be watching to see how he deals with the situation, our correspondent said.
In a statement after Sunday's attack, Jonathan's office said he had "directed that the security services undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers".
Mohammed Lerama, a police spokesman, said the official death toll stood at 55 so far, but Gregory Yenlong, Plateau State's Commissioner for Information, said: We are estimating 500 people killed but I think it should be a little bit above that."
Yenlong added that "soldiers are patrolling and everywhere remains calm", but security officials have been criticised for failing to prevent another outburst of violence just weeks after hundreds died in Muslim-Christian clashes.
The violence in the three, mostly Christian, villages on Sunday appeared to be reprisal attacks following the January unrest in Jos when most of the victims were Muslims, Robin Waubo, a Red Cross spokesman, said.

Washington, D.C. - International Christian Concern (ICC) has received additional details on attacks by Islamic extremists against Christians and churches in Maiduguri, Nigeria. ICC first reported this story on July 29 ("Islamic Extremists Kill Pastor, Raze Churches in Nigeria"). We have now learned that the Islamists killed 12 Christians, including three pastors, and razed twenty churches.

Sabo Yakubu, pastor of a Church of Christ congregation in Nigeria, Rev. Sylvester O. Akpan, pastor with National Evangelical Mission, and Rev. George Orji, pastor with Good News of Christ Church, were killed by members of an Islamic extremist group known as Boko Haram (which means "education is prohibited"). The group opposes Western education and fights to impose Sharia law throughout Nigeria, including areas that are majority Christian.

The Islamists also razed churches including: Deeper Life Bible Church, St Joseph's Catholic Church, St. Michael's Catholic Church, Church of the Brethren, Church of Christ in Nigeria, the National Evangelical Mission, Life Church, the Charismatic Revival Ministries Watchman (Lord's Chosen), Elijah Apostolic Church, the Good News of Christ Church, and the Celestial Church of Christ.

"Mohammed Yusuf, the Islamic sect leader, who initially said their targets were government property and security agencies, later changed and started setting ablaze churches and killing pastors who had nothing to do with their activities," said Rev. Yuguda Zubagai Ndurvuwa in a statement quoted by the Guardian. Rev. Ndurvuwa is the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria.

Boko Haram started the attacks on July 26 in Bauchi state. The violence later spread to the northern Nigerian states of Borno, Kano, and Yobe. Seven hundred people including police, Islamic militants, and civilians, were killed, and twenty church buildings worth an estimated $966,962 were demolished.

Nigerian security officers have captured or killed some leading members of the group including Mohammed Yusuf, the group's leader, who was killed while in police custody. But the group, which styled itself after Afghanistan's Taliban, is still believed to have over half a million followers in Nigeria.