Nigeria, il governo conferma la morte del leader “talebano”

Mohammed Yussuf, 39enne capo degli estremisti islamici nigeriani del "Boko haram" (l’istruzione è peccato), "è stato ucciso dalle forze della sicurezza in una sparatoria mentre tentava di fuggire". Lo ha affermato un portavoce della polizia alla tv nigeriana, confermando la notizia della morte dell’uomo arrestato ieri a Maiduguri, capitale dello stato di Borno nel nord del paese africano che conta 150 milioni di abitanti, dove si sono registrati gli scontri più sanguinosi da domenica scorsa. 

DAKAR, Senegal — Nigerian security forces on Thursday confirmed the death of the leader of a fundamentalist Islamic sect in the city of Maiduguri, apparently ending a fierce five-day campaign against the group that may have left hundreds dead across northern Nigeria.

A military spokesman would not say exactly how the leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed, though news agencies widely reported that he was killed after being captured. Human Rights Watch quickly issued a statement saying that “the killing in police custody of criminal suspects has become an extremely worrying pattern in Nigeria.”

The group’s compound — a mosque, a clinic and living quarters — was flattened after an all-out military assault on Wednesday that left bodies scattered about the area, reports and photographs from the scene suggested.

“Everything has been destroyed,” said Isa Umar Gusau, a reporter for The Daily Trust, a Nigerian newspaper, in a phone interview on Thursday from Maiduguri. He said he had seen about 50 bodies in the compound.

Nigeria, a fractious confederation of hundreds of linguistic and ethnic groups, is regularly riven by bloody religious strife. But this latest episode of violence has surprised even experienced observers, because of the intensity of the military response. Human rights groups expressed concern over civilian casualties — the exact number is not known — in an armed operation in a densely populated area, within a crowded metropolis. These rights groups often accuse the military of heavy-handedness in dealing with civil unrest.

Authorities blamed the religious sect, known as Boko Haram, for attacks on police stations on Sunday and Monday, and for amassing bombs, shells and fighters in preparation for a religion-inspired war on the state. The group’s name is a Hausa expression connoting distaste for Western education.

The authorities responded fiercely: the army quickly took over from the police, and sect buildings were strafed with gunfire and shells. In Maiduguri, a city of more than a million, frightened residents stayed indoors. Several thousand people were displaced from their homes. Estimates of the dead from reporters and observers are in the hundreds, though authorities have refused to give a death toll.

“Maiduguri town is free,” said the military spokesman, Col. Mohammed Yerima, in a phone interview from Abuja.

“It’s just the pockets of fundamentalists that we are mopping out,” he said. “We have dislodged the fundamentalists out of Maiduguri, and they have withdrawn to the outskirts.”

Colonel Yerima rebutted assertions from critics that the operation had been heavy-handed, saying loss of life had been kept “to the barest minimum.”

But questions lingered even as the operation drew to a close.

“Once you call in the army, the response is always the same,” said Jibrin Ibrahim, director of the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja, a leading West African research group. “You show them the area, and they bulldoze the area. That’s what they’ve always done in situations like this.”

A leading Nigerian human rights official, Shimaki Gad Peter of the League for Human Rights, said that during the operation, it would have been “difficult to differentiate between sect members and non-sect members because they are not carrying uniforms.”

Colonel Yerima alluded indirectly to the difficulty of distinguishing between innocent civilians and sect members. “We announced to the civilians that they should leave that place,” he said.

“Anybody found in that area is a member of that organization,” he continued, adding: “That is what we suppose because we give notice for people to get out of that place. The fundamentalists use people as a shield.”

With the gunfire over on Thursday, a semblance of calm returned to the battered city. The police and the military kept tight control on movement in the streets.

“Lots of stop and search by police, to make sure the dissidents don’t get back in the city,” said Mr. Gusau, the Daily Trust reporter, by phone from Maiduguri. “They are searching every road in the city, searching individuals, stopping people who have maybe changed their identities.”

The area of military operations “is completely destroyed,” Mr. Gusau reiterated.

Descriptions like that gave pause to human rights officials who were unable to survey the damage firsthand. “My feeling is that there was an excess use of force,” Mr. Peter said. “I thought this was supposed to be a police action. This is like warfare.”

Adam Nossiter reported from Dakar, and Alan Cowell from Paris

Tratto da The New York Times