55 killed in Nigerian 'Taliban' attacks on police

Islamist militants seeking to impose a Taliban-style regime in northern Nigeria have launched attacks on police in three towns as part of a two-day campaign of violence that has killed at least 55 people.

They first attacked a police station in the northern city of Bauchi on Sunday, leaving dozens dead in gun battles with police. Yesterday militants launched a wave of attacks in three more states, hitting the towns of Maiduguri, Damaturu, and Wudil in the predominantly Muslim North.

National police chief Ogbonnaya Onovo said 50 militants and five police officers had died. But local journalist Olugbenga Akinbule said he had seen the bodies of about 100 Islamist militants in Maiduguri after gun battles. More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian clashes since 12 of the country's 36 states began adopting sharia law in the north in 1999, though the violence had recently been easing. The south is predominantly Christian.

A radical sect known as Al-Sunna wal Jamma, "Followers of Mohammed's Teachings", comprises mainly young Nigerians who want to create a Taliban-style state based on a strict interpretation of sharia law and the Koran.

The group first came to prominence with a wave of similar assaults on New Year's Eve 2003.

Mr Onovo said: "This a fanatical organisation that is anti-government, anti-people. We don't know what their aims are yet; we are out to identify and arrest their leaders and also destroy their enclaves, wherever they are."