Nigeria Says Captured Islamist Leader is Dead
By VOA News
31 July 2009
An international human rights group is questioning the death of a Nigerian radical Islamist militant group leader who was killed hours after being placed in police custody.
Authorities in the northern city of Maiduguri say Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf was shot and killed late Thursday. The circumstances surrounding his death are still not clear. But several news organizations say he was killed in a shootout with police while trying to escape.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch issued a statement Friday calling the reports "extremely worrying" and called for an immediate investigation into his Yusuf's death.
Nigerian authorities blame Boko Haram for the violence that erupted on Sunday after security forces arrested some of the group's leaders. For five days, the militants attacked police stations, churches and government buildings.
Several hundred people died in the unrest.
Some reports indicate as many as 600 people were killed. The dead are said to include at least 100 Boko Haram members. Officials say thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting.
Boko Haram followers want northern Nigeria to adopt a strict interpretation of islamic law. Boko Haram, loosely translated, means "Western education is sinful." Nigerian officials have referred to the group as the "Taliban," a reference to militants in Afghanistan.
A dozen of Nigeria's 36 states have introduced strict Islamic law in the past decade. The country is roughly evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, with Islam predominant in the northern part of the country. Periodic clashes between the two populations have left thousands of people dead in recent years.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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