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Latest update: 29/07/2009
- Islamism - Nigeria - Taliban
Army in final battle with homegrown ‘Taliban’
Nigerian forces are battling the remnants of an Islamic fundamentalist sect that launched a series of attacks beginning on Sunday that have so far left at least 150 people dead across four of the country's Muslim-dominated northern states.
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FRANCE 24's Focus programme is devoted to the situation in northern Nigeria where police forces are fighting radical Islamists. |
Ultimately, their objective is “the overthrow of what they see as the Western-influenced modern state,” says Smith.
Douglas Yates, a political science professor at the American University in Paris, tells FRANCE 24 that the emergence of this group could be a result of the growing pains of nation-building, in particular Nigeria’s foundering attempts at development. Nigeria is now seeing a “modernisation of the state, secular education – [which pose] a threat to tradition – but no growth,” he said.
The latest fighting began on Sunday in Bauchi state, when police struck back at militants after an attack on a police station, before the violence spilled into neighbouring Yobe. The battles then spread to Maiduguri city, which remains the stronghold of the fundamentalist group.
Scores of people in the affected areas have been displaced by the fighting, and food is running out as markets and shops have been closed since Monday. Many residents are choosing not to venture from their homes and run the risk of being caught in the crossfire.
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In all, four of Nigeria’s northern states – Bauchi, Yobe, Kano and Borno – have been affected by the outbreak of violence. Since the return of a civilian government to Nigeria in 1999, 12 of the majority Muslim northern states have adopted sharia law.
The latest unrest is the deadliest sectarian violence in Nigeria since November 2008, when human rights groups say as many as 700 were killed in the central city of Jos in several days of clashes between Muslims and Christians. While Muslims predominate across Nigeria's north, Christians dominate in the south of the country.
