Nigeria deploys army to northeast to fight rebels

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria rumbled to a war footing Wednesday as soldiers and equipment moved into its northeastern states as part of an emergency military campaign against Islamic extremists waging a bloody insurgency.

In the last two days, Associated Press journalists and witnesses have seen armored tanks and soldiers moving through major roads and cities in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. Those states, crossing an arid region of some 155,000 square kilometers (60,000 square miles), are now under a state of emergency declared by President Goodluck Jonathan Tuesday night. The presidential order allows the military to arrest anyone at will and raid any building suspected of housing extremists.

Residents of the northeastern region greeted the new military campaign with faded hope and suspicion. Some prayed for an end of a violent guerrilla campaign that's killed more than 1,600 people since 2010, according to an AP count.

"Let's hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel; we have had enough killings and attacks and this created a tense situation in the land," said Amuga Keftin, who teaches at the Modibbo Adama University of Technology in Yola, the state capital of Adamawa state.

Others worried that regular life would halt entirely in the region, as people stay home out of fear of being targeted by security forces already accused of harassing, detaining and even killing civilians.

"We are waiting to see the arrival of the soldiers and it's our hope that unprovoked attacks, arrests and (abuses will) not be witnessed," Adamawa state resident Rabecca Musa said.

It was unclear the exact strength of the incoming military presence. A statement issued Wednesday by Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, a military spokesman, promised a "massive deployment of men and resources." However, Olukolade did not provide specifics and did not return calls for comment.

"The operational (planners) have also briefed participating troops appropriately on arrests, cordon and search — especially directed at apprehending those who have been violating sovereignty of Nigeria through terrorist training for insurgency and related activities," said Olukolade's statement.

In Maiduguri, the spiritual home of the Islamic extremist network known as Boko Haram, state officials said soldiers had been airlifted into the city. An AP journalist saw convoys of military vehicles on Monday night heading north into the rural expanse that borders Niger and Chad.

Nigeria's military also has jet fighters and attack helicopters, but it was not clear if those would be used in the assault.

Under the president's directive, soldiers have ultimate control over security matters in the three states, though his order allows civilian governments to remain in place. Such declarations are rare in Nigeria, a nation that abandoned a revolving door of coups and military rulers for democracy in 1999. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo placed two states under emergency rule during his tenure, throwing out elected leaders and installing caretaker governments.

This is Jonathan's second declaration of a state of emergency. In late December 2011, he declared emergencies in parts of four states, including Borno and Yobe. However, that declaration and an increased security presence failed to end the violence that is plaguing the nation.

The president's speech Tuesday offered the starkest vision of the ongoing violence, often downplayed by security forces and government officials due to political considerations. Jonathan described the attacks as a "rebellion," at one point describing how fighters had destroyed government buildings and "had taken women and children as hostages." He even acknowledged for the first time that Nigerian forces had lost control of some villages and towns in the northeast, something analysts and residents have warned has happened.

Nigeria's military even has said Islamic fighters now use anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks to fight the nation's soldiers, likely outgunning the country's already overstretched security forces.

While the military prepares for its campaign, human rights activists remain concerned about the possibility of soldiers indiscriminately arresting and killing civilians. A recent military operation in a fishing village in Borno state along the shores of Lake Chad saw at least 187 people killed amid allegations that soldiers were responsible. While the military has denied repeatedly that it attacks and kills civilians, the country's armed forces have a history of committing such assaults.

"The path towards public safety cannot be an expansion of violations of the rights of Nigerians," Jibrin Ibrahim, the director of the Center for Democracy and Development, said in a statement. "We believe that the human rights of citizens should not be secondary to the provision of security."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell condemned Boko Haram's "campaign of terror" and echoed the need to deal with the "worsening cycle of violence in northern Nigeria."

But he said Nigeria must ensure that its security forces "protect civilians in any security response in a way that respects human rights and the rule of law." Recent allegations of abuses in Baga and elsewhere in the north need to be fully investigated, with those responsible for wrongdoing held accountable, he said.

"We have made clear to the Nigerian government that its heavy-handed response to insecurity in northern Nigeria and the failure to address human rights violations will potentially affect our ability to provide security assistance going forward," Ventrell told reporters. "We've made that message clear to the Nigerians."

Meanwhile, violence pitting different ethnic groups against each other continues, with clashes that kill dozens at a time. In addition, authorities acknowledged Tuesday that a single attack by an ethnic militia in Nasarawa state killed at least 46 police officers and 10 agents with the country's secret police.

Even Jonathan in his speech Tuesday named 11 states in Nigeria that have suffered in "the recent spate of terrorist activities and protracted security challenges." The president's tally identified nearly a third of the states in Nigeria, without him mentioning the eastern states suffering through a spate of kidnappings and those in the oil-rich southern delta where crude oil thefts go unstopped. His words signal the serious challenges now facing this country's weak, increasingly embattled central government.

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Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Mohammed Abubakar in Potiskum, Nigeria; Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria; Ibrahim Abdul in Yola, Nigeria; Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria; and Bradley Klapper in Washington.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Nigeria president declares state of emergency

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At least 23 killed in central Nigeria violence

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Officials say at least 23 people have been killed in separate attacks in central Nigeria, as the nation's embattled president prepares to speak to the nation.

It's unclear what President Goodluck Jonathan's address, scheduled for Tuesday night, will be about. However, he recently cut short a visit to southern Africa to return home amid attacks pitting different ethnic groups against each other and continuing assaults by Islamic extremists.

On Tuesday, an official in the central Nigerian state of Kaduna said gunmen armed with assault rifles and suspected to be Hausa-Fulani cattle herders killed 11 people in a village there. And in Benue state, a government spokesman said an attack blamed on Hausa-Fulani cattle herders there killed at least 12 people.

The violence continues despite increased military and police deployments.

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Nigeria judge: Iranian, colleague smuggled weapons

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — An Iranian and his Nigerian accomplice were sentenced to five years in prison Monday over a plot they orchestrated to smuggle a shipment of military-grade weapons including mortar rounds into West Africa.

Both Azim Aghajani and his accomplice, Usman Abbas Jega, pleaded for leniency in the hearing, in which Justice Okechukwu J. Okeke avoided giving the men a maximum sentence of life in prison. The two men already have served more than two years in prison waiting for trial, time which will count toward their release.

The case began when security forces broke open 13 containers at Lagos' busy Apapa Port in October 2010 and found the weapons, sparking an international outcry as Iran is barred by the United Nations from shipping arms abroad. The cache, hidden under tiles in a shipment labeled as containing construction equipment, included 107 mm artillery rockets, rifle rounds and other weapons.

The shipment was bound for Gambia in West Africa, said authorities. Nigerian officials initially claimed the weapons were intended to be used by politicians in the country's 2011 elections, though Israeli officials also at one point suggested they could be bound for the Gaza Strip.

Nigerian authorities later arrested Aghajani and Jega, ultimately filing a five-count indictment against them for smuggling the weapons into the country and falsifying shipping documents. At a hearing Monday, Okeke dismissed one of the charges, but found the men guilty of the other four.

While Okeke acknowledged that he sympathized with Jega, whom he described as "trying to help his friend and make some money," the judge said he had "no doubt" about the other charges. However, Okeke did not apply the maximum sentence in the case. That's after he criticized the state's case from the bench, including once shouting at an agent of Nigeria's domestic spy agency for submitting documents showing Jega only waived his rights a day after allegedly making a confession to its agents.

Prosecutor O.O. Fatunde declined to say what she thought of the verdict after the hearing. Defense lawyer Chris Uche, who represented Aghajani, said prosecutors failed to prove their case and promised to appeal the ruling.

"I strongly feel that a lot of pressure from the international community has influenced the way this case has gone on," Uche told journalists after the ruling.

Iranian diplomats attended Monday's hearing, but declined to comment. Both the United Nations and the United States government have linked Aghajani to Iran's hardline Quds Force through Behineh Trading Co., which organized the arms shipment found in Nigeria. The Quds Force, part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, is an elite and secretive unit that serves as the defenders of Iran's ruling clerics and helps maintain their hold on power. It also acts against foreign powers.

The sentencing comes as Iran's actions across the African continent draws increasing scrutiny. On May 6, a Kenyan court sentenced two Iranian nationals convicted of plotting attacks against Western targets to life in prison. Kenyan anti-terrorism officials have said both of them served in the Quds Force.

In February, Nigerian authorities said they broke up a terrorist group backed by "Iranian handlers" that allegedly gathered intelligence about locations frequented by Americans and Israelis while asking for a list of high-level targets to assassinate. Iran later denied the accusation as a "fabrication." It's unclear where the three men arrested by Nigeria's State Security Service, the nation's domestic spy agency, are today.

Despite the high-profile case, Iran maintains regular diplomatic relations with Nigeria. Its Radio Tehran service broadcasts a Hausa-language service, the main language of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. Iran also offers direct and indirect support to Nigeria's Shiite minority.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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Nigeria extremists say they kidnap women, children

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The leader of an Islamic extremist group in Nigeria says his group has started kidnapping women and children as part of its bloody guerrilla campaign against the country's government, according to a video released Monday.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau says the kidnappings are retaliation for Nigerian security forces routinely imprisoning the wives and children of his group's members. The video shows 12 children, a mix of boys and girls, though it does not identify them or say where they came from.

"If they do not leave our wives and children, we will not leave," Shekau says in the Hausa language of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.

Police and security forces have not announced any kidnapping cases involving Nigerians taken after Boko Haram attacks, though such abductions could be easily done in the chaos after an assault. Shekau quoted the Quran in the video and said anyone taken by the group could begin a new life as a "servant," without going into detail.

Nigerian security forces often arrest children and wives to draw out criminal suspects in other matters, human rights activists say. Security forces also have been accused of abuses in their fight against Islamic extremists.

In the video, a Kalashnikov assault rifle sits over Shekau's right shoulder as he speaks, the background covered with a rug. It's unclear when the video was shot, though Shekau claims attacks Boko Haram launched on the towns of Bama and Baga in northeastern Nigeria in recent days.

In late April, at least 187 people were killed in fighting in Baga, a town in Borno state that sits along the banks of Lake Chad. Witnesses say soldiers angry about the death of a military officer set fire to homes there and killed civilians. Human Rights Watch recently said an analysis of satellite imagery before and after the attack led them to believe the violence destroyed some 2,275 buildings and severely damaged another 125.

Nigeria's military has blamed the blazes on rocket-propelled grenades fired by extremist and denied killing civilians, despite growing criticism and evidence showing mass civilian casualties.

Boko Haram leader Shekau said in the video that his fighters only launched a "small" attack there at night and had nothing to do with the civilian killings.

"The next morning security forces, they entered there, they burned down house," Shekau says. "They killed that they wanted to kill and in the end, they came and said it was Boko Haram. It's a lie."

Boko Haram's attacks have been increasing in number and sophistication since 2010. Attacks blamed on the group and other Islamic extremists have killed at least 244 this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Nigeria military helicopter crashes in oil delta

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian military helicopter has crashed in the country's oil-rich southern delta, just days after one of its jets crashed.

A statement from Nigeria's Air Force said the crash happened Thursday morning at its base in Port Harcourt and that the crew escaped unharmed. Local witnesses described seeing a plume of smoke rise from the base.

The air force identified the helicopter as a Russian-made Mi-24B attack helicopter. The statement said an investigation into the cause of the crash has started.

Nigeria has a history of major aviation crashes, both with civilian aircraft and military airplanes. On Monday, a Nigerian Air Force Alpha jet fighter crashed 37 miles (60 kilometers) west of Niamey, the capital of Niger, killing two pilots.

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Attack kills at least 20 Nigeria police officers

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — An ethnic militia killed at least 20 police officers who launched a raid to try and arrest them in central Nigeria, a police commissioner said Wednesday.

The attack in Alakio, a village in Nasarawa state, saw the officers ambushed Tuesday when they tried to stop the gang that was forcing locals to take a blood oath, police commissioner Abayomi Akermale said. Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people, has some 250 ethnicities. Such ethnic militias can be major presences in communities, exacting taxes and controlling areas in some places.

Akermale said the death toll in the attack could be higher, as emergency officials and police officers only reached the area on Wednesday. The commissioner declined to offer any other specific details about the attack, other than to say those responsible were not Islamic extremists.

The violence, which occurred in a state bordering Nigeria's central capital of Abuja, comes amid growing insecurity in the oil-rich nation. Islamic extremists, including those belonging to the radical network known as Boko Haram, have been launching increasingly bloody guerrilla attacks throughout the country's predominantly Muslim north.

Ethnic militias, as well as criminal gangs known in Nigeria as "cults," kill at will and kidnap others for ransom. Some gangs use traditional beliefs to instill loyalty from their followers, as well as strike fear into the local population. Such gangs also are known for using extreme violence and conducting rituals involving local witchcraft.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Authorities: 42 dead in Nigeria extremist attacks

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns killed at least 42 people in northeast Nigeria, authorities said Tuesday, the latest in a string of increasingly bloody attacks threatening peace in Africa's most populous nation.

The attack struck multiple locations in the hard-hit town of Bama in Nigeria's Borno state, where shootings and bombings have continued unstopped since an insurgency began there in 2010. Fighters raided a federal prison during their assault as well, freeing 105 inmates in another mass prison break to hit the country, officials said.

What exactly happened in the attack remains unclear, though military spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria's beleaguered army. Musa said two soldiers died in the attack, while some 10 insurgents died. However, the military routinely downplays their casualties in such assaults.

"They came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers but were able to detect them," Musa said.

The attackers struck the federal prison, killing 14 guards there, Musa said. They also attacked and razed a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate's court and local government offices, the lieutenant colonel said.

At least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in those attacks, said Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar. He said officers killed three insurgents in the fighting.

Calls rang unanswered or couldn't connect Tuesday night to those living in Bama, a town 65 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Repeated attacks by Islamic extremists have seen mobile phone towers bombed and burned to the ground there, making communication even more difficult for security officials and civilians as well in the region. At least 17 people died in an attack in Bama in late April alone.

Much of the violence has been blamed on the extremist network known as Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north. That group has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

While President Goodluck Jonathan has started a committee to look at the idea of offering an amnesty deal to extremist fighters, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, has dismissed the idea in messages.

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group's leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed more than 1,500 people, according to an Associated Press count.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation's weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, violent atrocities committed by security forces against the local civilian population only fuels rage in the region.

In late April, at least 187 people were killed in fighting between Islamic extremists and the military in Baga, another city in Borno state that sits along the banks of Lake Chad. Witnesses say soldiers angry about the death of a military officer set fire to homes there and killed civilians.

Human Rights Watch recently said an analysis of satellite imagery before and after the attack led them to believe the violence destroyed some 2,275 buildings and severely damaged another 125.

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

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Nigeria military: At least 11 killed in new attack

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Authorties in Nigeria say at least 11 people have been killed in violence blamed on Islamic insurgents in the country's northeast.

One attack happened Wednesday night in the fishing village of Gashua in Yobe state. Teacher Fati Umar, who witnessed the violence, said the Islamic extremists attacked a police station in the village and later a prison.

Lt. Eli Lazarus, a military spokesman, said the shootout killed two police officers and five civilians. However, Nigeria's military often downplays casualty figures to avoid the appearance that it is losing control of the region to extremists.

Another attack killed four in Bama, where a recent shootout between the military and extremists in Baga killed at least 187 people. In that attack, residents accused soldiers of killing civilians.

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Nigeria attack recalls other killings by soldiers

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Residents in Nigeria's northeast accused the military of burning down civilian homes in a recent fight with Islamic extremists that left at least 187 people dead, the latest in a series of incidents which authorities have been blamed for the killing of bystanders.

In separate incidents in 1999 and 2001, soldiers in Nigeria shelled villages, opened fire on residents and tortured civilians. While the military has denied abuse allegations surrounding the recent killings in Baga, the West African nation has a history of security forces indiscriminately killing civilians since it became an uneasy democracy after years of military rule.

And as officials hope to woo extremists into possible peace talks, the deaths of civilians and harassment by soldiers could likely betray its efforts. The government often claims its force is used only to combat the extremists, or criminals.

"You and I know nowadays the 'Boko Haram syndrome:' Anybody put in the public space as allegedly being killed in the course of fire as suspected Boko Haram persons, most members of the public will not fear it much," said Kemi Okenyodo, the executive director of the CLEEN Foundation, which monitors police and security forces in Nigeria. "Any crime that the public is strongly against it, it is easy to be used as a fluke for extrajudicial killings."

Government officials could not offer a breakdown of civilian, soldier and extremist deaths from Friday's fighting. Many of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition in fires that razed whole sections of the town, residents said. Those killed were buried as soon as possible, following local Muslim tradition.

Authorities also provide contradictory explanations about what really happened, as the military bans access for outside observers to an area officials want to describe as an insurgent stronghold.

Boko Haram members used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault, which Brig. Gen. Austin Edokpaye said began after soldiers surrounded a mosque they believed was housing Boko Haram members. Extremists earlier had killed a military officer, officials said.

The fighting lasted for hours and the military said extremists used civilians as human shields— implying that soldiers opened fire in neighborhoods where they knew civilians lived. However, local residents who spoke to an Associated Press journalist who accompanied the state officials said soldiers purposefully set the fires during the attack.

Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, a military spokesman, on Tuesday declined to immediately answer other questions about the military's conduct and other issues surrounding the killings.

By the time Borno state officials could reach the city Sunday, a local government official said at least 185 people were killed, something not disputed by Edokpaye who accompanied officials on the visit. A spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross said Monday that at least 187 people had been killed, while another 77 were receiving medical treatment.

A statement issued Tuesday by Edokpaye said only six civilians died in the fighting Friday, as well as one soldier and some 30 extremists. The brigadier general also claimed extremist fighters used "anti-aircraft guns" in the attack, arms never seen used before in the three-year-old insurgency. The statement also said the fighting occurred on April 16 — three days before the violence actually happened.

Nigeria's presidency has said the death toll "may be grossly exaggerated," but federal lawmakers have started their own investigations into the killings.

While Nigerian forces have served as peacekeepers in other African conflicts, many in the country remain fearful of soldiers. Nigerian media regularly reports on incidents where soldiers beat civilians in traffic or fight police officers in their own country.

"Fighting in a built-up area is a very difficult operation, but that notwithstanding, there must be standard rules of engagement," Senate President David Mark said Tuesday. "Those rules of engagement would not include mass killings, or extrajudicial killings, in any form."

But extrajudicial killings routinely occur in Nigeria, with police routinely shooting dead suspected "armed robbers," human rights activists say. That same mentality, a hangover from the military era when soldiers would routinely shoot dead prisoners on the then-swampy beaches of Victoria Island in Lagos, persists today.

Speaking Wednesday, President Goodluck Jonathan promised any soldier or security force member found committing such crimes would be "cautioned and treated in line with our own laws and regulations." But the nation's courts routinely drag out cases and such prosecutions remain rarer still.

"The problem of extrajudicial executions in Nigeria is closely linked to the remarkable inadequacies of almost all levels of the Nigerian criminal justice system," a United Nations report in 2006 on the killings said. The same report described how soldiers often operate without any rules of engagement when facing a civilian population.

There are several major cases in Nigeria's recent history of soldier abuses. In 2001, the military attacked some seven villages in Benue state following ethnic Tiv militants killing soldiers there. Witnesses said some 200 people died in the fighting that saw soldiers ransack villages, shell houses and gun down residents indiscriminately. In 1999, ethnic Ijaw activists claimed more than 200 civilians were killed by the military in Odi in Bayelsa state following the killings of police officers there.

A military raid in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta state in 2010 against militants there killed some 150 people, activists said, though soldiers blocked AP journalists from reaching the area at the time. And in October 2012, when extremists killed a military officer in Maiduguri, soldiers killed at least 30 civilians and set fires across a neighborhood in retaliation. The military later denied committing the abuses.

"In such incidents it is assumed by officials that the armed forces acted in 'self-defense' or were otherwise justified in carrying out retaliatory executions of civilians," the 2006 U.N. report reads. "Thus, although the intentional killing of unarmed civilians, whether in situations of armed conflict or otherwise, is a clear violation of both international and Nigerian law, impunity is the reality."

And despite Nigeria's presidency promising an investigation into the Baga killings, the same may continue to happen today.

"There is a consistent pattern in responding to these incidents," the U.N. said. "Major human rights violations are alleged; the authorities announce an inquiry; and either the resulting reports are not published, or the recommendations are ignored."

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Associated Press writer Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria, and Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Red Cross: At least 187 killed in Nigeria violence

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Fighting between soldiers and Islamic extremists in northeast Nigeria killed at least 187 people, the worst single incident of violence in the region since an insurgency there began three years ago, an aid agency said Monday.

Nigeria's military blocked access for relief officials to enter the town of Baga, which sits along the shores of Lake Chad in the nation's far northeast, said Nwakpa O. Nwakpa, a Red Cross spokesman. Another 77 people are receiving medical care there in the ruins of a town where some 300 homes burned down, he said. Local residents blamed angry soldiers for burning down neighborhoods where they knew civilians were hiding.

"Our volunteers are on standby," Nwakpa said. "We are yet to be provided clearance."

The fighting in Baga began Friday and lasted for hours, sending people fleeing into the arid scrublands surrounding the community. By the time Borno state officials could reach the city Sunday, a local government official said at least 185 people were killed, something not disputed by a brigadier general who attended the visit.

Officials could not offer a breakdown of civilian casualties versus those of soldiers and extremist fighters. Many of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition in fires that razed whole sections of the town, residents said. Those killed were buried as soon as possible, following local Muslim tradition.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed shock and sadness at the high civilian casualty toll and large number of homes destroyed and called on extremist groups to cease their attacks, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

"The secretary-general reiterates his firm conviction that no objective sought can justify this resort to violence," Nesirky said. "He underscores the need for all concerned to fully respect human rights and safeguard the lives of civilians."

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who appeared at an event Monday on the nation's power supply at the Aso Rock presidential villa in the country's capital, did not comment on the killings there. A few hours after Ban's statement, Jonathan's office issued a release saying he had ordered "a full-scale investigation into reports of high civilian casualties."

The "administration will continue to do everything possible to avoid the killing or injuring of innocent bystanders in security operations against terrorists and insurgents," the statement read. "Rules of engagement for the military and security agencies are already in place for this purpose and the investigation ordered by President Jonathan into the incident in Baga is to amongst other things, determine whether or not these rules were fully complied with."

The statement also said "casualty figures being reported by the foreign media may be grossly exaggerated." The statement did not offer any tolls for the injured or dead, nor did it explain what military officials already had told the presidency about the fighting.

Members of the Islamic extremist network Boko Haram used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault Friday, which Brig. Gen. Austin Edokpaye said began after soldiers surrounded a mosque they believed was housing Boko Haram members. Extremists earlier had killed a military officer, officials said.

The military said extremists used civilians as human shields during the fighting — implying that soldiers opened fire in neighborhoods where they knew civilians lived.

However, local residents who spoke to an Associated Press journalist who accompanied the state officials said soldiers purposefully set the fires during the attack. Violence by security forces in the northeast targeting civilians has been widely documented by journalists and human rights activists. A similar raid in Maiduguri, Borno state's capital, in October after extremists killed a military officer saw soldiers kill at least 30 civilians and set fires across a neighborhood.

Eric Guttschuss, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who studies Nigeria, said his organization continued to study what happened, though it already had deep concerns about the allegations surrounding the soldiers' conduct.

"We are investigating this extremely serious incident," he said. "In the past, Nigeria has simply denied or tried to cover up security force abuses."

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group's leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed at least 1,548 people before Friday's attack, according to an AP count.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north, has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. While Jonathan has started a committee to look at the idea of offering an amnesty deal to extremist fighters, Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau has dismissed the idea out of hand in messages.

Friday's violence marked the worst attack linked to Nigeria's Islamic insurgency. In January 2012, Boko Haram launched a coordinated attack in Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city, that killed at least 185 people, the previous worst attack. However, casualty numbers remain murky in Nigeria, where security and government officials often downplay figures.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation's weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, violent atrocities committed by security forces against the local civilian population only fuels rage in the region.

Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima, who visited Baga on Sunday, did not directly implicate the military for the killings in this attack, though anger could be heard in his voice.

"If the harassment continues, I will personally relocate from Maiduguri to here and let me be harassed along with the rest of the people," Shettima said at the time.

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Associated Press writers Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Nigeria sets up Islamic extremist amnesty group

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria formed a panel that will create an amnesty program for Islamic extremists to try to quell a bloody guerrilla campaign of bombings and shootings that's killed hundreds of people across its north, the government said Wednesday.

The 26-person panel, created by President Goodluck Jonathan, has a 60-day deadline to come up with an offer for militants belonging to the Islamic extremist network Boko Haram and other groups now fighting against government forces and killing civilians with apparent impunity. A similar program in 2009 worked to halt the majority of attacks by militants in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, though those fighting in the north have in the past rejected the idea of overtures from the government.

Problems with the committee, however, immediately became apparent after it was announced. At least one member said he hadn't been consulted before his name was released, and the list of panelists included no member of any armed insurgent group.

The presidential committee, including police and military officials, as well as politicians and human rights activists, would "constructively engage key members of Boko Haram and define a comprehensive and workable framework for resolving the crisis of insecurity in the country," according to a statement issued by presidential spokesman Reuben Abati. The committee also would offer a "comprehensive victims' support program," though the statement offered no further details about it.

The presidency said it hoped disarming Islamic extremists would happen within two months' time, an ambitious goal that likely will be extremely difficult. The command-and-control structure of the main extremist network Boko Haram remains unclear. It also has sparked several splinter groups, including those wanting to increasingly target Western interests and who have connections to other al-Qaida-linked groups.

Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, also has repeatedly said he would refuse any amnesty offer. Shekau's past demands included the release of all the sect's imprisoned members and instituting Shariah law across all of Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

The idea of an amnesty, discussed in some corners by analysts, came to a head in March when the Sultan of Sokoto, one of the country's top Muslim leaders, called for it. While the sultan did not speak in specifics, others have suggested offering an amnesty deal in line with one previously given to militants in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta in 2009. That deal offered cash payments and job training to fighters in return for them giving up their weapons and halting attacks on foreign oil companies.

The 2009 amnesty deal, however, did not stop all attacks in the delta, nor did it halt the rapidly growing theft of crude oil from pipelines there that has caused serious environmental damage. The militants in the nation's largely Christian south also attacked the commodity that fills the nation's coffers while typically not killing civilians. Those extremists fighting in the nation's Muslim north have shown no hesitation to kill civilians and security forces alike, nor does their fighting affect oil production.

Until Wednesday, the sultan was the highest-ranking official so far to publicly endorse such a plan for Islamic extremists. However, his name was absent from the list of amnesty panel members. Included on the list was Datti Ahmed, a Kano physician who heads a prominent Muslim group, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria. However, Ahmed last year publicly backed away from the suggestion that he work as a mediator after the idea leaked out and local newspapers began to publish stories about him.

Ahmed also is a controversial figure in the north, as he sparked a boycott of polio vaccines in 2003 in Nigeria after saying the vaccines were "corrupted and tainted by evildoers from America and their Western allies." That led to hundreds of new infections in children in Nigeria's north, where the disease is still active today, as well as a global polio outbreak that reached as far as Indonesia.

Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Another named panelist, Shehu Sani of the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress, told The Associated Press that Nigeria's government never consulted with him before publicly announcing his name. Sani said he would only serve as a member if Islamic extremists told him through an intermediary that they would consider an amnesty deal and would serve on the panel as well.

"In the absence of that, we would simply be doing something hoping it would work," Sani said. "And hope is not a strategy."

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group's leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed at least 1,548 people, according to an AP count.

Westerners in Nigeria have been targeted as well, including an August 2011 suicide bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, that killed 25 and wounded more than 100 others. A group of men who said they belong to Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of seven French tourists from northern Cameroon late February — a first for the group. Meanwhile, a Boko Haram splinter group known as Ansaru has claimed the recent kidnappings and killings in northern Nigeria of seven foreigners — a British citizen, a Greek, an Italian, two Lebanese and two people believed to be Syrian — all employees of a Lebanese construction company called Setraco.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation's weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, human rights groups and local citizens blame both Boko Haram and security forces for committing violent atrocities against the local civilian population, fueling rage in the region.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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Nigeria reporters face criminal charges for story

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Prosecutors filed criminal charges Tuesday against two journalists at a Nigerian newspaper over a story they published on alleged plans by the nation's presidency to disrupt opposition parties. The charges are a sign of growing government pressure on the media.

Tony Amokeodo and Chibuzo Ukaibe face 10 counts of forgery after the daily Abuja-based newspaper Leadership reported on a memo it claimed came from officials working for President Goodluck Jonathan. Amokeodo and Ukaibe appeared briefly in court Tuesday before being released on bail, said Azubuike Ishiekwene, the group managing director of the newspaper.

Though the presidency later denied the authenticity of the memo, It is unclear why authorities are charging the two journalists criminally as libel is handled typically as a civil matter in Nigerian courts. Federal police spokesman Frank Mba did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

In the story, the newspaper said the memo called for officials to disrupt the business interest of opposition party leaders. The newspaper said the memo also included a mention of influencing the country's Independent National Electoral Commission, as well as potentially raising the price of the oil-rich nation's subsidized gasoline — an issue that sparked a nationwide strike last year.

Officials with Nigeria's presidency later described the purported memo as a forgery and "cheap blackmail." Yet, police officials earlier detained four journalists from the newspaper over it, including Amokeodo and Ukaibe. Those two journalists were released after their colleagues only on condition they reported regularly to police investigators. Officers arrested the two when they reported to police headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, on Monday.

"We'll have to wait to see how it goes," Ishiekwene told The Associated Press. "It's better for us for the matter to be charged to court and them to be held indefinitely."

Journalists in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of more than 160 million people, routinely are targeted by security agencies for the stories they write. In December, two journalists from a Hausa-language newspaper were detained for days without charges after their publication printed stories on alleged abuses by the country's military in its fight against a radical Islamist sect. Journalists also face beatings and worse at the hands of thugs. At least 19 journalists have been killed in Nigeria since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The crackdown against the newspaper has drawn criticism across other newspapers and in social media, with some comparing to the crackdowns made by military rulers before Nigeria became a democracy in 1999. Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati went as far as to describe the newspaper in a recent statement as an influence that could "threaten our democracy and undermine law and order."

Abati later said: "This government is proud of its record on press freedom."

The Committee to Protect Journalists earlier called on the Nigerian government to stop its "harassment" of the newspaper.

"Nigerian police efforts to intimidate journalists of Leadership newspaper into revealing the source of a document, which the government has dismissed as fake, is a heavy-handed abuse of power unacceptable in a democracy," the committee's Africa coordinator Mohamed Keita said in a statement.

Still, the press in Nigeria at times resembles the age of newspaper barons and yellow journalism in the U.S. Oligarch families and politicians own many of the major newspapers that circulate in the country, while military rulers previously handed out television broadcast licenses to trusted friends. Journalists themselves remain woefully underpaid, sometimes seeing their salaries arrive months late. That forces some to expect money from interview subjects or collect so-called "brown envelope" bribes from politicians to support themselves.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Hundreds arrested in Nigeria immigrant raids

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian authorities are launching new immigration raids in the country as it faces threats from Islamic extremists. However, some say the raids are unfairly targeting poor immigrants.

Nigeria's porous borders and corrupt bureaucracy allow people to enter the country, giving extremists the chance to freely move and avoid capture. But those same borders give those living in absolute poverty in rural villages in neighboring countries a a chance to earn money. Now even immigrants with proper travel documents worry they'll be rounded up.

In recent weeks, the Nigeria Immigration Service in Lagos has deported some 345 people from Niger and 11 Ghanaians. In the latest raid April 9, authorities say they arrested 251 suspected illegal immigrants at a busy market.

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Extremists kill 4 police officers in north Nigeria

DAMATURU, Nigeria (AP) — Police in northeast Nigeria say suspected Islamic extremists attacked a police station, killing four officers in a gun battle.

The attack early Thursday morning in Babangida, a small town in Yobe state, is part of a continuing wave violence sweeping the north.

Yobe state police commissioner Rufai Sunusi said Thursday that his officers killed five of the gunmen. Sunusi said two officers also were wounded in the attack.

After the attack, Yobe state's government announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew for citizens.

Boko Haram and other Islamic extremists have been waging a guerrilla campaign of shootings and bombings across northern Nigeria. The violence has killed at least 173 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

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Radical Islamic group rejects Nigeria peace effort

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The leader of the Islamic extremist network Boko Haram apparently has refused to take part in any possible amnesty deal offered by Nigeria's government to stop the guerrilla campaign of bombings and shootings now plaguing the country.

An audio recording obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday features a man who sounds like Abubakar Shekau strongly objecting to any possible deal with Nigerian officials. The comments come after Nigeria's government has floated the idea of possibly setting up a government committee to examine offering some sort of deal to stop the violence that's killed hundreds over the last year.

The recording, first passed by intermediaries of Boko Haram to journalists in northern Nigeria, features the man talking about the possibility of an amnesty deal, first discussed last week. The man in the recording, speaking in the Hausa language of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north, calls the amnesty deal "surprising."

"We are the one to grant them pardon. Have you forgotten their atrocities against us?" he says.

Boko Haram, which sends messages through spokesmen and communiques at times of its choosing, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The man in the recording later threatens the lives of anyone claiming to be a representative of Boko Haram saying the network wants to accept a peace deal. A self-proclaimed Boko Haram leader said he could offer a ceasefire in northeast Nigeria on behalf of the group in January, though the violence continued unstopped.

The idea of an amnesty, discussed in some corners by analysts, came to a head in March when the Sultan of Sokoto, one of the country's top Muslim leaders, called for it. While the sultan did not speak in specifics, others have suggested offering an amnesty deal in lines with one previously given to militants in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta in 2009. That deal offered cash payments and job training to fighters in return for them giving up their weapons and halting attacks on foreign oil companies. The sultan is the highest ranking official so far to publicly endorse such a plan for Islamic extremists, many of whom fight as part of Boko Haram and its splinter groups.

The 2009 amnesty deal, however, did not stop attacks in the delta, nor halt the rapidly growing theft of crude oil from pipelines there that has caused serious environmental damage. The militants there also attacked the commodity that fills the nation's coffers while typically not killing civilians. Meanwhile, Boko Haram is blamed for killing at least 792 people last year alone, according to an AP count, and its attacks occur hundreds of miles away from the nearest oil well. So far this year, violence by Islamic extremists has killed at least 173 people, according to an AP count.

No Nigerian government officials have publicly said the government is creating a committee to study a possible amnesty deal for Islamic extremists, giving wiggle room to the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan for a possible denial later in case the idea is dropped. Jonathan, a Christian from the oil delta, has faced increasing public criticism for being unable to stop the killings.

Boko Haram says it is fighting to free its imprisoned members and install an Islamic government over Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. The group, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege," has conducted its guerrilla fight across Nigeria's north over the last three years. The group's command-and-control structure remains unclear, though it appears to have sparked several splinter groups.

A group of men who said they belong to Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of seven French tourists from northern Cameroon late February — a first for the group. Meanwhile, a Boko Haram splinter group known as Ansaru has claimed the recent kidnappings and killings in northern Nigeria of seven foreigners — a British citizen, a Greek, an Italian, three Lebanese and one Filipino — all employees of a Lebanese construction company called Setraco.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation's weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, human rights groups and local citizens blame both Boko Haram and security forces for committing violent atrocities against the local civilian population, fueling rage in the region.

Early Thursday morning, suspected Islamic extremists attacked a police station in Babangida, a small town in Yobe state, Yobe state police commissioner Rufai Sunusi said. Sunusi said four of his officers died in the attack, while two others were wounded. Police killed five of the gunmen, he said.

After the attack, Yobe state's government announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew for its citizens.

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Associated Press writers Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria, and Mohammed Abubakar in Damaturu, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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11 killed in central Nigeria village attacks

JOS, Nigeria (AP) — Officials in central Nigeria say at least 11 people have been killed in ongoing fighting between Christian and Muslim villagers in the region.

The attacks centered around the volatile city of Jos, where thousands have been killed since Nigeria became a democracy in 1999.

In the first attack Saturday, Tarok Christian people living in the Karkashi village say people from a neighboring Muslim Hausa-Fulani village raided their homes. Military spokesman Capt. Mustafa Salisu said Sunday that seven people were killed in that attack.

Later, in Zango, a Hausa-Fulani village, a community leader says four attackers from a Tarok settlement were killed. At least five people were also injured.

Religion, politics, grazing rights and economic power all play a role in the violence in Nigeria's fertile central belt region.

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At least 36 killed in southwest Nigeria bus crash

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — An official says at least 36 people have been killed in a bus crash in which a gasoline tanker exploded in southwest Nigeria.

The explosion happened Friday afternoon in Nigeria's Edo state.

Federal Road Safety Corps spokesman Jonas Agwu said three people survived the collision between the large bus and the tanker. Agwu said the crash resulted in a fire that burned for hours, making it difficult for officials to know how many people died in the crash.

Nigeria has some of West Africa's worst roads, despite its oil wealth. Massive potholes and poor paving, coupled with aggressive drivers, are blamed for many crashes. World Health Organization data shows Nigeria suffers from one of the world's highest traffic fatality rates.

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Abandoned Nigeria National Theatre eyed in renewal

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's iconic National Theatre, long in disrepair, is now at the center of a massive redevelopment plan that could be worth millions of dollars.

Nigeria's federal government has plans to use money leasing the swampy land in Lagos around the theater to private investors so they can build a mall, a five-star hotel and other amenities. The deal involves untouched land in a city where land is scarce, making it incredibly valuable.

However, some have doubts that the project will actually raise money for the theater. Meanwhile, the plans have already likely encouraged local officials to demolish the homes of slum dwellers living around the theater.

Nigeria built the theater, which resembles a military officer's cap, ahead of a 1977 arts conference and it is a landmark in the city.

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18 killed in head-on bus crash in central Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Authorities say 18 people have been killed in a head-on collision between two buses in central Nigeria.

Jonas Agwu, a spokesman for Nigeria's Federal Road Safety Corps, said the crash happened early Wednesday morning near Gwagwalada, a town outside of Nigeria's capital, Abuja.

Agwu said investigators suspect the driver of a smaller, older bus fell asleep behind the wheel, causing the vehicle to drift into the other lane and hit a large touring bus. He said at least nine others were injured in the crash.

Nigeria has some of West Africa's worst roads, despite its oil wealth. Massive potholes and poor paving, coupled with aggressive drivers, are blamed for many crashes. World Health Organization data shows Nigeria suffers from one of the world's highest traffic fatality rates.

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