From AFP 1
CASHES left at least one person dead and a number of houses burned in the Nigerian city of Jos yesterday amid tensions following a series of Christmas Eve bomb attacks that killed dozens.
The commissioner [state police commissioner Abdulrahman Akano] said the two groups involved in the clashes were "the locals and the so-called settlers".
Christians from the Berom ethnic group are typically referred to as the indigenes in the region, while Hausa-Fulani Muslims are seen as the more recent arrivals.
Mannok said the governor, Jonah David Jang, had encouraged youths in the city to be on the lookout and assist authorities in spotting suspicious activity.
At least 32 people were killed and 74 wounded in seven explosions in two different areas of Jos on Friday evening, with many of the victims doing their Christmas shopping at the time. A church was also targeted, the governor has said.
On the same night, suspected members of an Islamist sect that launched an uprising last year attacked three churches in northern Nigeria, leaving six people dead and one of the churches burnt.
The city is in the so-called middle-belt region between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south and has long been a hot-spot of ethnic and religious friction in Nigeria.
Local rights groups say 1500 people have died in inter-communal violence in the Jos region this year alone.
From BBC 1
The latest unrest was triggered by explosions on Christmas Eve in villages near Jos.
Friday's bomb attacks near Jos also left more than 70 people injured.
Reports said two bombs exploded near a large market. A third hit a mainly Christian area while the fourth was near a road leading to a mosque. No group has claimed responsibility.
The tensions stem from decades of resentment between indigenous groups and settlers from the north.
From BBC 2
The Christmas Eve blasts happened in an area where up to 1,000 people died in sectarian clashes this year.
About 74 people were wounded in the bomb blasts. Some are in a critical condition.
In a separate development, at least six people died in attacks on churches by suspected Islamists in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.
Friday night's bomb explosions occurred during Christmas Eve celebrations in villages near Jos, police say.
Gregory Yenlong, a spokesman for Nigeria's Plateau state, told Bloomberg news agency that there had been threats "to disrupt Christmas celebrations in Jos".
Muslims are generally from the Hausa- or Fulani-speaking communities. They are often nomadic people who earn a living from rearing animals or petty trade.
The mainly Christian Berom, Anaguta and Afisare groups have traditionally been farmers.
Some Christian farmers feel they are under threat, as Hausa-speaking Muslims come down from the north looking for pasture for their animals.
In Maiduguri, suspected Islamist sect members attacked at least two churches late on Friday.
In one incident, petrol bombs killed five people including a Baptist pastor, Reuters news agency reported.
A security guard at a nearby church died in a similar assault, Reuters added.
From BBC 3
Gregory Yenlong, a spokesman for Nigeria's Plateau state, said there had been long-standing threats against the region's Christian community.
"For the past two weeks there have been threats to disrupt Christmas celebrations in Jos," Mr Yenlong told Bloomberg news agency.
From Reuters
At least six people were killed in attacks on two churches in northeastern Nigeria on Christmas Eve and 20 more died in explosions in the country's central region, officials said on Saturday.
Attackers threw petrol bombs late on Friday at a church in Maiduguri, killing five people, including a Baptist pastor. A security guard at a nearby church died in a similar assault.
The tension is rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands and for economic and political power with migrants and settlers from the north.
From AP
Dozens of armed men attacked the church, dragging the pastor out of his home and shooting him to death. Two young men from the choir rehearsing for a late-night carol service also were slain.
The group of about 30 attackers armed with guns and knives even killed two people passing by Victory Baptist Church. The assailants only left after setting the church and pastor's house ablaze.
At the opposite end of the city, Rev. Haskanda Jessu said that three men attacked the Church of Christ in Nigeria an hour later, killing a 60-year-old security guard.
At least 38 people died in Christmas Eve attacks across Nigeria, including the six killed at churches in the country's north by suspected members of a radical Muslim sect. In central Nigeria, 32 died in a series of bomb blasts in the worst violence to hit the region in months.
Authorities have not identified suspects following the Christmas Eve explosions in Jos and it was not immediately clear if those attacks had a religious motive. Two of the bombs went off near a large market where people were doing last-minute Christmas shopping. A third hit a mainly Christian area of Jos, while the fourth was near a road that leads to the city's main mosque.
state governor David Jang would only say "we believe some highly placed people masterminded the attack."
Source: AFP (1, AP, BBC (1, 2, 3), Reuters
Comments: Just like in Sudan, where over 2 million Christians and animists died, here in Nigeria the Muslim north is also in conflict with Christian and animist south.
As usual, Muslim settlers from underdeveloped societies, here they are nomads, immigrate to Christian land and then start committing acts of terror. Nothing different from what is happening in the West with Muslim immigrants.
They should build a wall, like in Israel to separate the two groups. It works in Israel and save lives, despite false moral arguments and groundless complaints against it.
Some reports are trying to portray the Muslim terror in non religious terms by trying to blame it on economic and ethnic factors. But this tired old lame excuse can easily be refuted by showing that Muslims always clash with others in other places even when economic or ethnicity is taken away. Such excuses are like the race excuse for terror in the West. Nigeria, just like in Sudan shows that race isn't the case of terrorism. Without Islam or Muslims, the thereat of terror is vastly reduced.
This is nothing but Islamic hate! They always have excuses for terror. If it isn't this, then it's that. The only solution is to separate them out, just like in Israel with separation barrier. It's letting them in and mixing them with others, based on the discredited multi-culturalism, that is causing the problem. They just become Trojan horses and fifth-columns on the inside.
And no, not all Muslims are terrorists but almost all terrorists are Muslims, as a Muslim newspaper acknowledged. There is no way to separate the good from the bad. And if we can only do something if we are 100 per cent sure, then nothing could be done. Some thing has to give and the right thing to do is to side with the would be innocent victims, instead of would be terrorists.
Of course, they will still clash among themselves, if they are kept away from the Kuffar. But that's their problem.
In the case of Nigeria, the Christian south should break away from the Muslim north and form a country of it's own, just like it is about to happen in Sudan, and of course restrict immigration after that happens. The Muslim north would probably then become a deeply impoverished nation with a large population under strict Islamic law, and these people would start immigrating to the free and prosperous Christian south and start clashing again, if immigration isn't taken care of, like in the West or Kosovo.
Some previous similar or related stories:
Muslim 'Christmas is evil' dawa poster in London, and website says it's pagan, sex, abortion, blasphemy, 'claiming God has a son', drugs, alcohol and violence and that Islam is better [Muslim extremists think that Christmas is evil so it would be no surprise if they bomb Christmas celebrations]
Last year a Muslim mob killed a pastor and his wife in Nigerian village of Boto in the mainly Christian Tafawa Balewa district of Bauchi state [Some history]
Muslims with machetes kill 6 Christians - 2 women & 4 children - burn homes, crops and kill cattle in Nigerian [Some history]
Brief Boko Haram history and ['Islam has nothing to do with it' so there must be] a 'poverty excuse' for their terrorism (many allegedly sympathized with previous Maitatsine extremists) [Socio-economic excuse for Muslim terror refuted]
Nigerian police chief says some police may be Boko Haram Islamic terrorist members tipping off police movements resulting in failure so far to stop them [Don't trust the police]
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