LEAD: At least 191 killed during weekend of terror in Nigeria

Jan 22, 2012, 16:40 GMT

Monrovia/Abuja - At least 11 people were killed Sunday in fresh attacks in northern Nigeria - bringing the death toll over the weekend to at least 191, after coordinated bomb blasts two days earlier.

According to officials, armed men targeted two churches and a police checkpoint Sunday in the town of Tafawa Balewa, in the north-eastern state of Bauchi.

It was not immediately clear whether the attack was staged by Boko Haram militants or herdsmen involved in ethnic clashes.

Loud explosions were heard early Sunday in Bauchi, but they later turned out to have been caused by faulty electricity generators.

The same day, five members of the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram were arrested in the oil rich city of Port Harcourt. Intelligence officers said they had been planning to attack security outfits and oil installations.

This weekend's violence was the worst ever perpetrated by Boko Haram, which also claimed responsibility for Christmas Day church bombings last month and an August attack on the UN headquarters in Abuja.

The group said Saturday that the previous day's attacks in the northern city of Kano, which killed at least 180 people, were acts of revenge 'against the government, the law enforcement and the Christian Association of Nigeria, because they have slaughtered us.'

President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the attacks Sunday. 'It is with a heart full of sadness and pain that I convey my condolences on behalf of the federal government of Nigeria to the families, friends and associates of all those who lost their lives,' he said.

'These are honest and patriotic Nigerians who were brutally and recklessly cut down by agents of terror. As a responsible government we will not fold our hands and watch enemies of democracy ... perpetrate unprecedented evil in our land,' he added.

France, Italy, Britain and the European Union also released statements condemning the attacks.

Witnesses said teenagers on motorbikes had carried out the blasts. Gunfire also broke out. At one site, the police headquarters in the area of Marhaba, a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into the wall of the building.

At an immigration office, at least three officers were shot dead on the spot before explosives were hurled.

Witness Jafaru Isaw said he saw 'mangled bodies being removed from the debris,' followed by 'intermittent gunshots.'

'It looked like one of those incredulous things you see in a war movie, the shootings were deafening,' he said.

Among the dead was 31-year-old television journalist Eneche Akogwu, who had been interviewing witnesses of the attacks.

Relatives and friends of those killed spent the weekend attempting to identify the bodies of loved ones.

Because many of Kano's dead were Muslim, funerals were planned immediately, but many bodies were so badly burned that identification was difficult.