Suspected Islamic sect frees more than 700 in prison break

AFP - Suspected members of an Islamist sect have freed hundreds of inmates in an attack on a prison in northern Nigeria that led to a fierce gun battle with authorities, officials said Wednesday.
   
Authorities said more than 700 inmates escaped in the Tuesday night attack, including at least 150 alleged sect members. The sect blamed for the attack, known as Boko Haram, had launched an uprising in Nigeria's north last year.
   
Bauchi state police commissioner Danlami Yar'Adua reported four people killed, including a soldier, a police officer and two residents.
   
The head of Nigeria's prisons, Olusola Ogundipe, said during a visit to the scene on Wednesday that more than 120 inmates had since returned on their own and an unspecified number had been arrested.
   
Officials gave varying figures for the number of prisoners who initially escaped, with Ogundipe saying 721 and the state prison director putting it at 732.
   
All of the alleged sect members who escaped were believed still missing. Police and military checkpoints were set up throughout the area.
   
"We are out combing everywhere and have asked local chiefs to report strange faces in their areas to security personnel," said Ogundipe, adding witnesses told him the attackers numbered around 200.
   
The ground around the prison was littered with bullet casings. Leaflets were also found in the area, declaring in the Hausa language that "this holy work was made possible by Allah's grace, under the auspices of your mujahideen brethren."
   
A prison guard had earlier described the assault on the prison.
   
"They came in large numbers, heavily armed, and began shooting at the prison gate," the guard, Salisu Mohammed, told AFP. "Some of us were hit while others fled."
   
He said the attackers "gained access and moved from cell to cell, breaking in and freeing the inmates. They set fire to a section of the prison and burnt the vehicles parked outside the gate."
   
One resident said the alleged sect members were chanting "Allahu Akbar" -- or God is great -- when they arrived.
   
Calm had returned to the area on Tuesday night, though military and police were occasionally firing into the air as they locked the area down.
   
"There was heavy fighting between the attackers and the security forces which lasted for almost an hour. It was quite terrifying," resident Usman Ahmad said.
   
Residents took cover to avoid being caught in the crossfire and to keep from being mistaken for sect members, he said.
   
Recent shootings had signalled the sect might be preparing to strike again in Africa's most populous nation, roughly divided in half between Christians and Muslims.
   
Last year's uprising by Boko Haram began with attacks on police posts, and  police were among the victims of the recent attacks by motorcycle-riding gunmen in northern Nigeria.
   
The 2009 uprising was crushed by a police and military assault, with hundreds eventually killed and the sect's headquarters and mosque left in ruins.
   
Tuesday's attack came on the same day officials announced January 22 as the date for Nigeria's presidential vote and was an ominous sign in a country where elections have often been tainted by violence and rigging.
   
It also occurred just before the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and ahead of the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
   
President Goodluck Jonathan announced on Wednesday he was replacing the country's military, police and intelligence heads, but there was no indication the pre-election moves were linked to the prison attack.
   
Boko Haram means "Western education is sin" in local Hausa dialect, though the sect has been known by various names, including the Nigerian Taliban. It had fought for the creation of an Islamic state in Nigeria.
   
The vast majority of Muslims in the country reject the sect's hardline ideology, and many observers say the group grew out of frustration with Nigeria's widespread corruption, poverty and lack of opportunities for youths.