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Death Toll In Wave of Killings By Nigerian Islamists Tops 100


Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan
In Nigeria, more than 100 people are thought to have been killed in a wave of gun and bomb attacks claimed by radical Islamists.

A rescue agency official at the morgue in Damaturu, Nigeria, says he personally counted more than 150 bodies before relatives of victims began to take bodies away for burial.

An AFP correspondent there counted 97 corpses still in the mortuary today.

The attacks in northeastern Nigeria have been claimed by the Boko Haram sect, which rejects Western ideals and wants to establish Shari'a law across Nigeria.

The militants on November 4 bombed churches and police stations in a mainly Christian neighborhood of Damaturu. They also fought gun battles with police.

President Goodluck Jonathan has condemned the attacks and pledged to arrest the perpetrators.

In August, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital, which killed 24 people and wounded 116.

Oil-rich Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with some 160 million people, is roughly split between a mainly Muslim north and mostly Christian south.

compiled from agency reports

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