MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – Government forces hunted on Sunday for surviving members of a radical Islamist sect after heavy fighting left at least 700 people dead and buildings and cars scorched. No new fighting was reported but a military commander told The Associated Press that many sect members were still at large. Armed with machine guns, government troops sweating in tropical heat guarded the rubble of the sect's headquarters in this northern Nigerian city.
Moderate Muslim clerics and scholars said they had warned government officials about the sect's violent tendencies — and that the alarms went unheeded before Boko Haram militants attacked a police station in Bauchi state on July 26. Violence quickly spread to three other states before Nigerian forces retaliated, storming the group's Maiduguri compound. Boko Haram is also known as the Nigerian Taliban. No direct link to al-Qaida has emerged but the bloodshed comes amid mounting concern about al-Qaida affiliates' ability to cross desert borders of North Africa. Many Boko Haram members were purportedly from neighboring Niger.
At least 700 died in Nigeria violence
