Africa News
LEAD: Mosque attack kills one in southern Nigeria
Jan 10, 2012, 16:40 GMT
Abuja - An attack on a mosque in the southern Nigerian city of Benin killed at least one Tuesday, police sources said.
A police source told dpa that several people were injured in the attack.
The unnamed source said young people 'capitalized on (fuel subsidy protests) to carry out a reprisal attack on Muslims as revenge after (attacks) on southerners in the north.'
About 25 people stormed the mosque, setting it alight, along with a Koranic school next door.
The source did not say if anyone had come forward to claim responsibility.
Attacks on places of worship in Nigeria have claimed at least 50 lives since Christmas Day, when a coordinated spate of bombings targeted churches around the country.
Radical Islamist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day blasts.
Tuesday's attack comes after a day of violence Monday in Benin, when protests against fuel subsidy removal turned violent.
Young people looted shops and a bureau de change in the city, according to the newspaper The Nation, which also reported that a generator was set alight next to a mosque.
Religious and communal clashes are not a common in the oil-rich city.
'Today's attack is (a) ... failure on the side of the police, who had prior knowledge that the mosque is a possible place of attack' said Joe Obi of the Youth Movement For Peace.
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