Nigerian security probe deadly attacks

Soldiers manned checkpoints in Nigeria's second largest city on Sunday after coordinated bombings and gun battles killed 166 people in one of the deadliest attacks to hit the mainly Muslim north. Bombs were thrown at two churches in pre-dawn attacks on Sunday in the neighbouring state of Bauchi but there were no casualties, police said. "The explosives thrown at two churches caused minimal damage. There was no loss of lives or ...injuries recorded in the blasts," Bauchi state police spokesman Mohammed Barau told AFP. The blasts targeted a Catholic and an evangelical church. In Kano, a round-the-clock curfew imposed shortly after the city exploded in violence on Friday evening was relaxed to a night-time curfew on Sunday, though streets remained largely deserted. President Goodluck Jonathan, who has imposed emergency rule in parts of Nigeria's north, was expected to visit Kano city Sunday, sources in the presidency said. Relief workers who spent the previous say picking up bodies that littered the streets following the attacks that came after Muslim Friday prayers, spoke of at least 166 killed. "As at yesterday, the overall death toll was 166," said one relief agency source, adding more than 50 were injured. However, a doctor at a major hospital in the city said the death toll could be as high as 250. "If truth be told, the overall death toll from the attacks is around 250," said the doctor, pointing out that relief workers were still picking up bodies littered across the city on Saturday when his hospital morgue counted 162 bodies. "Although the bulk of the bodies were brought here, others were deposited at three other hospitals," said the doctor, who declined to be named. A purported spokesman for Islamist group Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for the violence, saying it was in response to authorities' refusal to release its members from custody. Scores of such attacks in Nigeria's north have been blamed on Boko Haram, though Friday's would be among the group's most audacious and well-coordinated assaults. Boko Haram has also claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day bombing of worshippers outside a Catholic church near the capital Abuja, which killed at least 44 people. The group also claimed responsibility for the August suicide bombing of United Nations headquarters in Abuja that killed 25 people. Elsewhere in northern Nigeria, nine people of a Christian ethnic group were killed in an overnight raid. A local traditional leader in Tafawa Balewa, a flashpoint of sectarian violence, suspected the attackers were Muslims from the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group. In Kano on Friday around 20 explosions reverberated across the city targeting a police headquarters and other police stations, a secret police building and immigration offices. Gunfire erupted in a number of areas, and a local television journalist covering the unrest was among those shot dead. Kano had escaped the worst of the violence blamed on Boko Haram in recent months, but the attacks sent residents fleeing in fear of what would come next and kept many indoors. "How can I go out while such a huge number of the people have been killed? I have to respect the dead," said food trader Shehu Lawan. Authorities have not given a precise death toll from the attacks, only saying it would be over 100. Hospitals have been struggling to cope with the dead and wounded. On Sunday dozens of people were still thronging morgues and searching through stacks of dead bodies looking for loves ones for burial. An AFP correspondent counted at least 80 bodies in the main city morgue, many of them with gunshot wounds, and said there were piles of other corpses he was unable to count. President Jonathan declared a state of emergency on December 31 in parts of four states hard hit by attacks attributed to Boko Haram, though Kano was not included. Most of the recent major attacks have taken place in the country's northeast. The state of emergency has not stopped attacks, and the areas targeted have spread beyond the locations covered by the decree. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer, is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south. The limitations of the authorities were recently highlighted when the alleged mastermind of the Christmas Day bombing escaped police custody in suspicious circumstances. Attacks specifically targeting Christians have also given rise to fears of a wider religious conflict in the country, with Christian leaders warning they would defend themselves. Some have even raised the possibility of civil war. However, attacks blamed on Boko Haram have included a wide range of targets, including Muslims.