LAGOS, Nigeria -- A newspaper says a radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in northeast Nigeria and has promised to launch new assaults.
The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record in Nigeria's Muslim north, says Boko Haram spokesman Abul-Qaqa spoke to them Saturday and claimed the attacks that have killed at least 67 people in and around Damaturu and Maiduguri.
2 comments:
Western oil companies and governments have propped up unrepresentative and repressive governments in Nigeria for decades, with the result that little of the country's oil wealth reaches the people. The sort of uprising described here is inevitable, and at heart, has economic, not religious, causes. I think it does readers a disservice to propagate the myth of evil muslims while ignoring the far more serious problems in Nigeria.
You may well be right about the root causes -- certainly the sectarian violence does fall along religious lines but it may be caused by underlying poverty and inequality issues
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