Religious war: Deaths as forces clash with Shiites in Nigeria
Police and soldiers used tear gas to disperse the gathering, and some used live rounds, said Mallam Hussaini, who attended the ceremony. “They just opened fire on us, unprovoked, and already 10 have been killed. Their corpses are here lying on the ground,” Hussaini said.
By IBRAHIM ABDULAZIZ/Associated Press
YOLA, Nigeria – As many as 10 people were killed on Wednesday when security forces clashed with Shiite Muslims attending a religious ceremony in northern Nigeria, one witness said. Officials said they could not confirm any deaths.
The violence occurred in Funtua, Katsina state, as hundreds of Shiites defied a ban by local authorities to gather for Ashoura, a holiday marking the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson.
Police and soldiers used tear gas to disperse the gathering, and some used live rounds, said Mallam Hussaini, who attended the ceremony.
“They just opened fire on us, unprovoked, and already 10 have been killed. Their corpses are here lying on the ground,” Hussaini said.
Katsina police spokesman Salisu Abubakar Agaisa said the deaths were unconfirmed but noted that security forces were authorized to break up Ashoura gatherings.
“Any person or group of persons caught violating the order will be dealt with and prosecuted accordingly,” he said.
In addition to the clashes in Katsina state, mobs were reported on Wednesday to have attacked Shiite gatherings in the northern cities of Kano and Kaduna.
Nigeria is almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims, most of them Sunni. Tensions with the Shiite population are high after the army gunned down more than 300 people in an attack last December on the headquarters of a Shiite group in Kaduna state.
A Kaduna state commission of inquiry recently said the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, a Shiite group, was responsible for provoking the attack, which it said began with a blockade that halted the convoy of Nigeria’s army chief. The group’s leader, Ibraheem Zakzaky, has been in custody since December. Last week, Kaduna officials declared the group to be unlawful, and on Sunday they ordered the arrest of its spokesman.
Outlawed Shiite group reports arrests of members in Nigeria
LAGOS, Nigeria — A newly outlawed Shiite Muslim group in northern Nigeria on Monday accused officials of using tear gas, clubs and sticks to round up members including women and children, as pressure grew on a minority group that the military has accused of trying to assassinate its army chief.
The Iranian-inspired Islamic Movement in Nigeria said eight members of one family were among those held in “illegal custody,” but it did not specify how many people had been detained in all.
Authorities in Kaduna state could not immediately be reached to comment. Africa’s most populous nation is almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims, most of them Sunni.
Monday’s statement was signed by Ibrahim Musa, the group’s spokesman, whose own arrest was ordered by Kaduna officials on Sunday. That order came two days after the state declared the group to be unlawful.
In this Friday, April. 1, 2016 file photo, Nigerian Shiite Muslims take to the street to protest and demanded the release of Shiite leader Ibraheem Zakzaky in Cikatsere, Nigeria. A newly outlawed Shiite Muslim group in northern Nigeria on Monday, Oct. 10, 2016 accused officials of using tear gas, clubs and sticks to round up members including women and children, as pressure grew on a minority group that the military has accused of trying to assassinate its army chief.
Sunday Alamba/AP Photo, File
A Kaduna state commission of inquiry recently said the Islamic Movement in Nigeria was responsible for provoking an attack in December 2015 on its headquarters, during which the army gunned down more than 300 Shiites. The report said the violence began with a blockade that halted the convoy of Nigeria’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai.
Nigeria’s Shiites say they are not planning joint attacks with Boko Haram
Shiite Muslims mark the festival of Ashura in Kano, Nigeria, October 24, 2015. Nigeria’s main Shiite group has denied reports it is planning a coalition against the military with Boko Haram.
Nigeria’s main Shiite group says it has no links with Boko Haram and is not planning a coalition with the militant group.
The Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN)clashed with the Nigerian Army in Zaria, Kaduna state in northern Nigeria in December 2015 after the army claimed IMN members attempted to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff.Some 300 IMN members were killedin the clashes, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, while the group’s spiritual leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky was arrested and remains in detention.
The movementreleased a statementon Monday, claiming that reports were circulating among the Nigerian security services, linking the IMNwith the Sunni fundamentalist group Boko Haram, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions during its six-year insurgency in Nigeria.
Ibrahim Musa, the IMN’s media spokesperson, toldNewsweekthat the reports had been circulated by Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service (DSS), to give justification for a crackdown on the movement. “The Islamic Movement is totally and completely different from the so-called Boko Haram. Sheikh Zakzaky has said it many times that we only talk but we don’t fight,” says Musa.
Newsweekattempted to contact the DSS for comment but no one was immediately available.
Boko Haram, which considers Shiite Muslims to be infidels, has previously attacked IMN gatherings, Musa says. He blames the group, led by the elusive Abubakar Shekau, for asuicide bombingat a religious procession in Potiskum, Yobe state, which killed at least 20 people in November 2014.
In 2015, a male suicide bomber detonated his device during a Shiite pilgrimage from Kano to Zaria, killing at least 21 people. Boko Haram released a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, saying they would continue to fight “against Shia polytheists…until we cleanse the earth of their filth.” Sheikh Zakzaky, however,denied that the group was responsibleand suggested the Nigerian military may have been behind the attack. According to Musa, this is because Zakzaky and the IMN see Boko Haram as a tool used by the military to persecute their group.
“If a group with such a venomous agenda against us can do this to us, then how can we go into strategic alliance with it? It’s impossible,” says Musa.
Zakzaky has been in detention since December 2015 and the IMN has claimed that afurther 700 of their membersare still missing as a result of the clashes with the army. A Kaduna state government inquiry into the events has been criticized by the IMN as biased and Musa says the group is still campaigning for the unconditional release of its leader.
In a previous comment toNewsweek, Nigerian defense spokesman Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar said that it would be inappropriate to comment on Zakzaky’s detention but that the army had created a new human rights investigatory committee to investigate alleged abuses, such as the Zaria clashes, and that the military had “nothing to hide.”
