The army carried out crackdowns on Saturday and early Sunday against the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, IMN, and arrested its leader Ibrahim Zakzaky, following a bloody confrontation.
“We have reports that bodies of our members killed outside the house of our leader are being evacuated in trucks by soldiers,” IMN spokesman Ibrahim Musa told AFP.
Musa also said Zakzaky had been arrested. “Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky was arrested this morning (yesterday) in his demolished home by soldiers where he had been holed up in a room that was spared from the fire that gutted the house from grenades.”
IMN, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in an Iranian-styled revolution, has been at loggerheads with Nigeria’s secular authorities, leading to occasionally violent confrontations.
Sheikh Zakzaky has periodically been incarcerated for incitement and subversion. The north is predominantly Muslim and largely Sunni. Musa said the victims of the fighting included his wife, son and the former IMN spokesman.
“We can’t give a precise figure of the deaths but it is huge given the number of the members that answered the call to protect the house from the invading soldiers,” he said.
He said the group’s leader had been unable to leave the house “because of the gunshot wounds he sustained in the indiscriminate fire soldiers opened on the house and his followers who tried to protect it.”
“We gathered he was taken to Kaduna (70 kilometres away). We got in touch with the medical doctor that is treating him who confirmed to us that our leader is critically ill from four gunshot wounds he sustained. “He was shot at four times, this the doctor confirmed,” Musa told AFP.
On their part, the military said the Shiites attacked the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, which left soldiers no option but to retaliate. The military authorities say El zakzaky is in protective custody.
Addressing a conference in Kaduna, GOC 1 Div Nigerian Army, Kaduna, Maj.-Gen. Adeniyi Oyebade, said the sect leader and the wife are in their custody.
The GOC, who was flanked by Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Usman Shehu, also stated that, at the appropriate time Sheik El zakzaky will speak to his followers.
IMN, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in an Iranian-styled revolution, has been at loggerheads with Nigeria’s secular authorities, leading to occasionally violent confrontations.
Sheikh Zakzaky has periodically been incarcerated for incitement and subversion. The north is predominantly Muslim and largely Sunni. Musa said the victims of the fighting included his wife, son and the former IMN spokesman.
“We can’t give a precise figure of the deaths but it is huge given the number of the members that answered the call to protect the house from the invading soldiers,” he said.
He said the group’s leader had been unable to leave the house “because of the gunshot wounds he sustained in the indiscriminate fire soldiers opened on the house and his followers who tried to protect it.”
“We gathered he was taken to Kaduna (70 kilometres away). We got in touch with the medical doctor that is treating him who confirmed to us that our leader is critically ill from four gunshot wounds he sustained. “He was shot at four times, this the doctor confirmed,” Musa told AFP.
On their part, the military said the Shiites attacked the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, which left soldiers no option but to retaliate. The military authorities say El zakzaky is in protective custody.
Addressing a conference in Kaduna, GOC 1 Div Nigerian Army, Kaduna, Maj.-Gen. Adeniyi Oyebade, said the sect leader and the wife are in their custody.
The GOC, who was flanked by Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Usman Shehu, also stated that, at the appropriate time Sheik El zakzaky will speak to his followers.
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