April 18, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 29, 1428

KANO (Nigeria), April 17: An Islamic fundamentalist group on Tuesday killed 12 police officers and one civilian in an attack on a police station in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, police said.

The attack came despite attempts by the authorities to step up security in the region following weekend violence across Nigeria that claimed 21 lives following Saturday's regional elections.

An officer at the scene on Tuesday said that the armed group, comprised of men and women wearing red turbans and scarves, attacked the suburban police post in broad daylight, killing the station chief, his wife and 11 officers.

Police said they did not think Tuesday's attack was related to the polls.

The earlier unrest had prompted the authorities in Kano, the most populous city in northern Nigeria and a flashpoint for both religious and communal violence, to impose a dusk-to-dawn curfew ahead of next weekend's presidential vote.

Kano State police spokesman Baba Mohamed confirmed the bodies of 13 people were taken to the morgue.

He said the attack was committed by a group known locally as the Taliban because of its admiration for the former rulers of Afghanistan, and had nothing to do with the ongoing elections.

“This has nothing to do with politics. It is purely religious. The same group that called itself Taliban which launched attacks in Yobe and Borno respectively in September 2004 and June 2005 were responsible for this attack in Kano,” he said.

The Taliban group was best known for trying to convert villagers in the northeastern Yobe state to a stricter form of Islam. But in December 2003 the group launched its first documented violent attack, killing one policemen.

Nigerian police have in the past said that at least one of the group's leaders trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Haz Iwendi, a spokesman for the federal police in the Nigerian capital Abuja, said Tuesday's attacks were “the handiwork of Muslim fundamentalists”.

“We want to flush them out from where they are presently holed up, arrest them and bring them to justice,” he said by telephone.

Witness estimates of the number of assailants varied wildly from 40 to 10 times that number. They said the attackers briefly occupied the station and were surrounded, but escaped into a nearby abandoned waterworks building.—AFP