Gov't's security raid rocks northern city

KANO (AP):

A young man in traditional robes sobbed yesterday as he stood in a pool of blood, surrounded by bullet-scarred walls left behind after a security raid in this northern Nigeria city recently assaulted by a radical Islamist sect.

Residents of this dusty neighbourhood in the city of Kano pressed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the home, saying soldiers and others killed the man who lived there and his pregnant wife for no reason.

The local police commissioner acknowledged the attack and said it was part of the government's effort to root out the sect known as Boko Haram, responsible for killing at least 185 people in a Friday attack on the country's second-largest city.

Yesterday's killings highlight the dangers posed by possible reprisal killings and arbitrary arrests carried out by Nigerian security services who are trying to stop Boko Haram's increasingly sophisticated attacks. And while the sect remains amorphous and secretive, such assaults may only alienate the same population the government wants to save.

"He didn't belong to any religious group. Is it because of his beard?" asked relative Musa Ibrahim Fatega. "That means you cannot dress the way you are. Is it good? Is this how government is going to treat us?"