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| Africa: West | ||||
| Nigerian Taliban sez the fight will go on | ||||
| 2004-01-14 | ||||
An Islamic militant detained by Nigerian police over an armed uprising says the self-styled "Taliban" group wants to overthrow the government because it has sold out to the West. Ismail Abdul-Fatai, a chemical engineering student of Lagos State Polytechnic, was arrested with other militants after a week-long series of attacks on police stations and government buildings in five northeastern towns two weeks ago. Nineteen members of group have been killed in a massive security sweep of the area near the Niger border, which is now under army control. "Our group has definitely suffered a setback, but our objective of fighting corruption by institutionalising Islamic government must be achieved very soon," Abdul-Fatai told Reuters at the police station in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, on Monday. "Our aim is to cause serious confusion and overthrow the government of infidels headed by the crop of present politicians who have sold us out to the West to the detriment of Islam," he added, before being whisked away by
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| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 A few more details from AP story: The students were followers of a Nigerian Islamic cleric known as Abu Umar, or Mullah Umar, students and Nigerian security agencies told AP. Little is known about Umar except that he, like all his followers, is under age 30. He drew his flock largely from northern Islamic states, but also from the majority Christian southern states of Oyo, Osun and Lagos. The students included children of top northern government officials, police said. The young men called themselves Al Sunna wal Jamma, Arabic loosely translated as Followers of the Prophet's Teaching. Leaving prosperous homes and university study, the students settled with Mullah Umar in a tent city on the banks of the Yobe River at the town of Kanamma. At least 200 students lived there - roughly the same number as is believed to have taken part in the uprising, said Yobe state spokesman Ibrahim Jirgi. Security agencies say the group may secretly have had as many as 1,000 members, spread out in cells. --------------------------------- Mohammed said a friend introduced him to Mullah Umar, when Mohammed was an economics student at Bayero University in the northern city of Kano. "Umar saw my interest in the Koran and the Islamic way of life," the jailed student said. "So he showed me portions of the Koran which says we should consider those who don't follow Allah's law as followers of Satan." ----------------- Umar eluded arrest, and is being sought by authorities. Under Mullah Umar, the group for two years limited itself to political activity - handing out leaflets critical of officials they saw as lax on Islamic law, for example. Then, the sect began clashing with residents over fishing rights around their Yobe River camp. Increasingly militant, students took over a primary school in Kanamma, hoisting a flag that labeled it "Afghanistan." Yobe state Gov. Abba Ibrahim said he was trying to persuade the students to disband when they launched their attacks. The offensive failed, not only because security troops moved in, but because the rich students failed to connect with the area's Muslims - 80 percent of whom live on less than $1 a day. "They put Islam upside down," said Ibrahim Tijjani, a Maiduguri-based Muslim cleric. "Violence is only justifiable in Islam when one's religion, life, family or property is attacked - none of which happened in this case." |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-1-14 3:16:36 PM |
| #2 FYI: A Muslim can only accept secular law as provisional to shariah. That is why the West should reconsider both citizenship grants to Muslims, and immigration of same. |
| Posted by: Wasserman 2004-1-14 2:43:28 AM |
| #1 FYI: no Muslim can only accept secular law as provisional to shariah. That is why the West should reconsider both citizenship grants to Muslims, and immigration of same. |
| Posted by: Wasserman 2004-1-14 2:43:06 AM |