By Ibrahim Mshelizza
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Security forces in northern Nigeria Thursday battled the remnants of an Islamic sect following days of unrest which have killed more than 180 people and displaced thousands.
Bursts of gunfire rang out in the city of Maiduguri and helicopters hovered overhead as the police and army went from door to door hunting followers of radical preacher Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of the Boko Haram sect.
The violence erupted when members of the group, which wants a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law) across Africa's most populous nation, were arrested Sunday in Bauchi state on suspicion of planning an attack on a police station.
Yusuf's supporters, armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs, then went on the rampage in several states across northern Nigeria, attacking churches, police stations, prisons and government buildings.
National defence spokesman Colonel Mohammed Yerima said Yusuf had escaped Maiduguri late Wednesday after his compound was shelled but said the security forces were on his trail.
"We have his picture, we have his details and the long arm of the law will catch up with him," Yerima told a news conference in the capital Abuja.
"As from tomorrow there will be a show of force in the affected areas. That is, the military will come out ... and assure civilians that everything is in place to protect them."
Residents in Maiduguri said they were still too afraid to venture out despite assurances from the authorities.
"This city is like a battlefield," local journalist Muhammed Yakubu told Reuters.
"We still hear gunshots in the railway area which is the operational base of Boko Haram. The area is surrounded by the military and police and shelling is still going on, although the leader was able to escape with some followers yesterday."
Ali Modu Sheriff, governor of Borno state of which Maiduguri is the capital, said the militants had been dislodged and urged people to go about their normal business.
"The house-to-house search is still going on and anybody that harbours them will be dealt with according to the law," he said in a broadcast on state radio.
"NIGERIAN TALIBAN"
President Umaru Yar'Adua said intelligence agencies had been tracking the group, sometimes referred to as the "Nigerian Taliban," for years and that its members were procuring arms and learning to make bombs to force their views on Nigerians.
He ordered the security forces to take all necessary action to "contain them once and for all."
Police in Maiduguri said the security forces had killed 90 sect members Monday alone. Eight police officers, three prison officials and two soldiers were also killed.
In neighbouring Yobe state, police said they had recovered the bodies of 33 sect members after a gun battle near the town of Potiskum Wednesday. More than 50 people were killed in the initial fighting in Bauchi Sunday.
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language spoken across northern Nigeria, is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
Police said they freed 95 women and children Wednesday being held by the sect in Maiduguri. Its members believe their wives should not be seen by other men and their children should receive only a Koranic education.
Boko Haram's views are not espoused by the majority of Nigeria's Muslim population, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.
The violence in the north is not connected to unrest in the Niger Delta in the south, where militant attacks have prevented Nigeria from pumping much above two-thirds of its oil capacity. The delta's main militant group has condemned the violence.
(Additional reporting by Camillus Eboh and Felix Onuah in Abuja; Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Diana Abdallah)
