100 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted

Raiders make move day after bombing in capital killed 75

A woman reacts at Asokoro hospital morgue Tuesday after she lost a relative in Abuja, Nigeria, when a bomb exploded at a bus station Monday.
A woman reacts at Asokoro hospital morgue Tuesday after she lost a relative in Abuja, Nigeria, when a bomb exploded at a bus station Monday.

LAGOS, Nigeria - Suspected Muslim extremists kidnapped about 100 girls Tuesday from a school in northeastern Nigeria, less than a day after militants bombed a bus station and killed 75 people in the capital, Abuja.

With an 11-month-old state of emergency in three northeastern states failing to produce relief, the attacks have resulted in increasing calls for President Goodluck Jonathan to rethink his strategy in confronting the biggest threat to the security of Africa’s most-populous nation.

The attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist network have killed more than 1,500 people in this year alone, compared with an estimated 3,600 dead between 2010 and 2014.

In the latest attack, gunmen killed a soldier and a police officer guarding a school in Chibok on the edge of the Sambisa Forest and abducted the teenage girls after midnight, according to authorities.

Some of the girls escaped by jumping off the gunmen’s open truck as it was moving slowly along a road, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Islamic extremists have been abducting girls to use as cooks and sex slaves.

All schools in Borno state were closed three weeks ago because of stepped-up attacks that have killed hundreds of students in the past year. But the young women - ages between 16 and 18 - were recalled to take their final exams, a local government official said.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has targeted schools, mosques, churches, villages and agricultural centers in its assaults. The insurgents have also made raids on military barracks and bases.

The report of the abductions came as officials were still dealing with the aftermath of Monday’s bombing at an Abuja bus station that killed 75 and wounded 141, just miles from Nigeria’s seat of government. The attack also was blamed on Boko Haram.

Last week, extremists staged their first reported attack in Jigawa state, to the west of the northeastern states where Boko Haram holds influence. They reportedly hit a police station, a Shariah Islamic court and a bank, and killed seven police officers.

Farther south, Gov. Gabriel Suswam of Benue state said traditional rivalries over land and water resources between mainly Christian farmers and predominantly Muslim Fulani herders are being exploited by militants. More than 200 people have been killed there in recent weeks.

“The belief I have, and which is shared by a lot of people, is that it is the same insurgents that are operating in other parts of the country that have found themselves in Benue, using the Fulani as a facade to unleash mayhem,” Suswam told the Daily Trust newspaper.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar suggested it was time for the Nigerian government “to accept foreign assistance with fighting terrorism.”

“The bombings … automatically cast doubts on the [government] claims of containing the crisis to the fringes of the country,” he said, urging stepped-up intelligence to pre-empt attacks.

Abubakar, who made his remarks in a statement responding to Monday’s bombing, could not be reached to clarify his remarks.

In further discord, the country’s two main political parties have accused each other of supporting the Islamic insurgency for ulterior motives.

Jonathan said last year that he believes there are Boko Haram sympathizers and supporters in his Cabinet and high ranks of the military. That was before he dismissed his entire military command in January, followed by the defense minister.

The New York-based World Policy Institute has identified northern politicians from both main parties who it says supported Boko Haram or were victims of extortion by the extremists.

Some politicians have accused members of the military of colluding with Boko Haram, feeding the network information and arms, so that they can continue to steal from war coffers.

And some northern politicians say that keeping the insurgency going is a way to weaken the north as Nigeria gears up for elections in February.

Jonathan, a Christian from a minority tribe in the south, is expected to contend despite opposition from within his party, breaking an unwritten rule to alternate the presidency between a Christian southerner and a Muslim northerner.

The spiritual leader of Nigeria’s more than 85 million Muslims said Sunday that there is no plot to Islamize the country, where another 85 million are Christians.

“Nobody can Islamize Nigeria. If Allah wanted, he would have made everybody Muslims, so also with Christianity,” said the sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar.

For his part, Jonathan has said the Islamic uprising is a plot to destabilize his administration.

Transforming Nigeria into an Islamic state is Boko Haram’s stated mission. It says that establishing Shariah law will halt the endemic corruption that keeps 70 percent of Nigerians impoverished while an elite group lives in obscene luxury off oil proceeds.

Information for this article was contributed by Haruna Umar, Bashir Adigun and Godwin Isenyo of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/16/2014

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