Security forces kill 27 “Taliban” militants, says police

The Nigerian security forces have killed 27 Islamic militants during a raid on their hideout in Borno State in the northeast of the country following attacks on two police stations in the area earlier this week, police said on Friday. Borno State police commissioner Ade Ajakaiye said two policemen were killed in the confrontation with the armed militants on Thursday in the Gworza hills, near the Cameroon border. The militants of the Al Sunna wal Jamma sect attacked two police stations on Monday night in the nearby towns of Bama and Gworza, killing four police officers and two civilians. It was the first attack by the Islamic fundamentalist group, which models itself on Afghanistan's Taliban movement, since it briefly occupied two towns in Yobe state in northeastern Nigeria in December last year. The name of the group means 'Followers of the Prophet' in Arabic. Ajakaiye said a joint team of soldiers and policemen had pursued the militants into the Gworza hills following the latest attacks. Besides killing 27 militants, they had recovered 22 assault rifles and large quantities of ammunition, he added. The police commissioner said five of the militants who fled across the border were apprehended by the Cameroonian security forces and would be returned to Nigeria. "We are yet to know the identities of the 27 killed, but we know they belong to the Taliban group," he told reporters. The sect was formed by university and polytechnic students in Maiduguri, two or three years ago, but drew adherents from all over Nigeria. Many were the children of wealthy and influential people. The group first took up arms in December last year with the attacks on police stations and public buildings in the towns of Geidam and Kanamma in Yobe state. The militants occupied these two settlements for several days, raising the flag of Afghanistan's Taliban movement over their camps there. Eventually soldiers and police moved in to push them out. At least 18 people died in the ensuing clashes and dozens of militants were arrested. Four members of the group were killed while attempting to break out of jail in Damaturu, the Yobe capital in June. Nigeria's volatile mix of religions and its history of repeated outbreaks of sectarian violence have made the authorities nervous about the emergence of Al sunna wal Jamma. The country's 126 million population is roughly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south with a significant number of Animists in between. The adoption of strict Islamic law of Sharia’h by 12 predominantly Muslim states in the north since 2000 has fuelled intermittent bouts of Christian-Muslim violence in which severall thousand people have died.