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INTERNATIONAL Jerusalem deal boosts Jordan in Holy City AMMAN: A Jordan-Palestinian deal entrusting King Abdullah II with the defense of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem appears to be aimed at engaging Amman in future peace talks with Israel, experts say. The deal signed between the Jordanian monarch and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday confirmed a verbal agreement dating back to 1924 that gave the kingdom custodianship over the city’s holy sites. But its timing, hot on the heels of a March 20-24 regional tour by US President Barack Obama, has intrigued analysts with some linking it to the deadlocked peace process and others seeing it as a possible shield against future JERUSALEM: A general view shows Al-Aqsa Mosque (center) and the Dome of the Rock in the old city of Jerusalem. A deal signed between the Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has confirmed a verbal agreement dating back to 1924 that gave the kingdom custodianship over the city’s holy sites. —AFP action by Israel. “It might be a sign for the start of efforts led by Obama to resume peace talks as it shows that the Palestinian Authority and Jordan have creative solutions for Jerusalem,” said Oraib Rintawi, head of the Al-Quds Centre for Political Studies. “It boosts Jordan’s role in the Jerusalem question, giving legal and political means to tackle the issue internationally with the recognition of the Palestinians and Israel.” On Sunday the king and Abbas stressed their “common goal to defending” Jerusalem and its sacred sites against attempts to Judaise the Holy City, particularly the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound. “In this historic agreement, Abbas reiterated that the king is the custodian of holy sites in Jerusalem and that he has the right to exert all legal efforts to preserve them, especially Al-Aqsa mosque,” the palace said in a statement. The status of Jerusalem is one of the most contentious issues in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Al-Aqsa compound is the scene of frequent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis. Israel, which occupied Arab east Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, claims both halves of the city to be its “eternal and undivided capital”, a move that has not been recognised by the international community. But the Palestinians want the Kurdish-Turkey peace process faces impasse PKK demands legal guarantees for withdrawal ISTANBUL: Turkey’s peace process with Kurdish militants faces a hurdle as the rebels demand legal protection to prevent any military attack on them during their planned withdrawal after decades of fighting, a call rejected by the government. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) declared a ceasefire with Turkey last month in response to an order from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan after months of talks with Ankara to halt a conflict which has killed more than 40,000. The next planned step is a withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkish territory to their bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, but the militants say they could be vulnerable to attack from Turkish troops unless parliament gives them legal protection. “The guerrillas cannot withdraw unless a legal foundation is prepared and measures are taken, because guerrillas suffered major attacks when they left in the past,” PKK commander Cemil Bayik told Kurdish Nuce TV in an interview aired late on Monday. Hundreds of PKK fighters are estimated to have been killed in clashes with security forces during a previous withdrawal in 1999 after Ocalan’s capture and conviction for treason. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said he guarantees there would be no repeat of such clashes Sudan frees 7 political prisoners KHARTOUM: Sudan freed seven political prisoners yesterday, a day after President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir ordered the release of all such detainees. The amnesty came after Sudan and South Sudan agreed in March to end hostilities and resume cross-border oil flows after coming close to war a year ago. Khartoum had accused its southern neighbor of supporting rebels trying to topple Bashir. Seven members of an opposition group were released from Kober prison in Khartoum at dawn on Tuesday, witnesses said. They had been held since January after being accused of meeting a group of Sudanese rebels in Uganda who planned to overthrow Bashir. Farouk Abu Issa, head of the National Consensus Forces grouping of the main opposition parties, confirmed the release of the seven. “We demand all other political prisoners be released,” he said. Rights groups have accused the government of holding an unspecified number of dissidents since the security services cracked down on small protests against austerity measures unveiled by Bashir last year. In February, a UN human rights expert visiting Sudan said authorities were holding opposition figures and other detainees without trial and denying them urgent medical care. Bashir did not say when, and how many, prisoners would be released in his speech to parliament on Monday. “I announce today my decision to release all political prisoners,” said the president, in power since 1989. “I also renew a commitment to create a climate to hold a national dialogue with the other political forces.” Issa called for Bashir to take further measures, including lifting a ban on newspapers which had been critical of the government. Sudan’s weak and fractured opposition have tried to bring “Arab Spring” protests to Khartoum, but failed to mobilize mass support. Vice President Ali Osman Taha last week invited rebel groups to help prepare a new constitution following the secession of South Sudan in July 2011. Khartoum has accused Juba of backing rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North) which took up arms in two border states around the time of South Sudan’s declaration of independence. Rebels of the SPLM- North sided with the south during the civil war with Khartoum that led up to South Sudan’s secession but were left inside Sudan after the partition. —Reuters but is against legislation, instead saying the rebels should disarm before withdrawing to remove the risk of firefights with Turkish forces. “We don’t care where those withdrawing leave their weapons or even whether they bury them. They must put them down and go. Because otherwise this situation is very open to provocation,” Erdogan said in a television interview late on Friday. Milliyet newspaper reported security sources as saying about 700 of 1,500 PKK militants believed to be in Turkey may be allowed to reintegrate into society rather than withdrawing as they have not taken part in armed attacks. POLITICAL RISK The PKK has rejected a withdrawal without legal protection. “A withdrawal as called for by Erdogan is not on our movement’s agenda,” PKK leaders in northern Iraq said at the weekend, calling for government action to advance the peace process. “It is essential for the lasting and healthy development of the process that some concrete, practical steps are taken in order to convince our forces,” the group said in a statement. Erdogan has taken a considerable political risk in allowing negotiations with Ocalan, reviled by most Turks, to unfold publicly. The government has said little about what reforms it would make to persuade the PKK to disarm. The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, launched its insurgency in 1984 with the aim of carving out an independent state in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, but later moderated its goal to autonomy. Pro-Kurdish politicians are focused on boosting minority rights and stronger local government for the Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s population of 75 million people. Erdogan said he would meet on Thursday members of a “wise people” commission who will prepare a report on the peace process for the government within one month. The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) is separately calling for a parliamentary commission to monitor the process. Efforts to resolve the legal protection dispute are likely to top the agenda in planned talks between a BDP delegation and Ocalan in his jail on Imrali island, south of Istanbul. The visit is expected this weekend, a Justice Ministry official said. The visit, which may bring an order from Ocalan for the withdrawal to begin, will follow celebrations by Ocalan’s supporters to mark his birthday on April 4 at his birthplace in southeast Turkey. —Reuters KHARTOUM: A political prisoner from Kober prison greets a relative following his release in the early hours of yesterday, after Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir said that he will release all political detainees. —AFP BAGHDAD: Gunmen attacked a contracting company in Iraq’s Akkas gasfield on Monday, killing at least three local workers and kidnapping two more before burning their camp in the remote western desert. Akkas, operated by Korea Gas Company (KOGAS) in Anbar province near the Syrian border, is still not producing gas. But the attack is another indication of increased insurgent presence along the frontier where Syria’s war is spilling into Iraq. “Gunmen in vehicles attacked the headquarters of a local company hired by KOGAS to do work in the field,” said the mayor of nearby Al Qaim town, Farhan Ftaikhan. “They killed an engineer and two workers and kidnapped two more. Before they left they set fire to vehicles and offices.” eastern sector as the capital of their promised state and fiercely oppose any Israeli attempt to extend sovereignty there. The Al- Aqsa mosque compound is referred to as the Temple Mount by Jews and Al-Haram Al-Sharif by Muslims. It houses both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque- Islam’s third holiest shrines-and is venerated by Jews as the site where King Herod’s temple stood before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. ‘SOMETHING’S COOKING’ “The agreement indicates that something is cooking and that steps are expected very soon to find a Palestinian-Israeli settlement,” said political analyst Labib Kamhawi. “The deal helps Jordan become publicly more active in Palestinian territories.” But Kamhawi said he was “pessimistic” and the timing was “suspicious”. “I think Israel is planning to do something in Jerusalem and the agreement was necessary to help clear the way. We might see developments that are not in the interest of Jerusalem or the Palestinians.” Rintawi said the deal also backs the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty. “It completes articles related to the custodianship of holy sites. At the same time it clears any misunderstanding about custodianship matters and competition between Jordan and the WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 Palestinians.” Article 9 of the peace treaty says Israel recognizes Jordan’s “special role in protecting” Muslim shrines in Jerusalem. Jordanian and Palestinian officials insist Sunday’s agreement has nothing to do with the peace process. “Although it could be true that the agreement came following increased Israeli Judaisation campaigns, it is not related to peace negotiations,” a senior palace officials said on condition of anonymity. “The main reason is to pave the way for Jordanian legal defense of Muslim holy sites in the region, particularly that Al-Aqsa is under direct danger by Israel.” The Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, Atallah Khairy, agreed. “The Jordanian custodianship in Jerusalem is very essential because any legal vacuum in the Holy City will be exploited by Israel,” he said, adding that “the king had been feeling that Israeli schemes in the city were growing.” Jordan administers the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem through its ministry of Awqaf and religious affairs. Abbas on Monday told reporters in Ramallah that the deal consolidates past agreements with Jordan, has nothing to do with Obama’s visit and is not related “at all with the negotiations”. Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in autumn 2010 in an intractable spat over settlement building.—AFP CAIRO: Egyptian satirist and television host Bassem Youssef is surrounded by his supporters upon his arrival at the public prosecutor’s office in the high court in Cairo. —AFP Egypt launches fresh probe against satirist CAIRO: Egypt’s prosecution is probing complaints of “threatening public security” against popular satirist Bassem Youssef, who is already on bail facing charges of insulting the president and offending Islam. Judicial sources and Youssef said the public prosecutor ordered the probe on Monday following a complaint by a lawyer. The state security prosecution, which handles national security cases, will conduct the investigation. “A new complaint against me has been referred to state security prosecution, for spreading rumors and false news, and disturbing public tranquility after the last episode,” Youssef wrote on Twitter. “It seems they want to drain us physically, emotionally and financially,” he added. The prosecutor also ordered an investigation into complaints against two journalists over a television program that discussed Youssef’s case, a source from the prosecutor’s office said. One of the journalists, Shaimaa Aboul El Kir, who works as a Middle East consultant for the New Yorkbased Committee to Protect Journalists, said she was being investigated for an interview in which she defended Youssef. “I attended Youssef’s questioning and then did an intervention on television. They (the complainants) consider what I did as a ‘disturbing to public security’,” she said. Prosecutors are also investigating Jaber Al-Qarmuti, the anchor El Kir spoke to on the show aired by the private television channel ONTV. Judicial sources said Youssef is being investigated along with the head of the CBC television channel which airs his weekly program Albernameg (The Show), which is modeled on Jon Stewart’s satirical The Daily Show. The complaint against them appears to accuse Youssef of stoking criticism of Islamists and obliquely calling No group claimed responsibility for the late-night assault, but security officials say the local wing of Al- Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq, is regaining ground in the remote hills, caves and villages along the Syrian border. Ten years after the US-led invasion, Iraq still struggles with political instability and Sunni Islamist fighters who often attack Shiite Muslims to try to provoke the kind of sectarian confrontation that killed thousands at the height of the war. But Al-Qaeda in Iraq is also now linked to Sunni Islamists fighting in neighboring Syria. Officials say it has been invigorated by arms, insurgents and support flowing to rebels battling against President Bashar Al-Assad across the border. The Akkas strike was the second large attack for a “civil war”. Youssef, who regularly skewers the country’s ruling Islamists on his wildly popular show, was released on $2,200 bail on Sunday after an interrogation that lasted nearly five hours. He was questioned on accusations of offending Islam through “making fun of the prayer ritual” and of insulting President Mohamed Morsi by “making fun of his international standing.” He now joins the ranks of several colleagues in the media who face charges of insulting the president. The soaring number of legal complaints against journalists has cast doubt on Morsi’s commitment to freedom of expression-a key demand of the popular uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The United States on Monday expressed concern at the proceedings against Youssef, saying it was evidence of a “disturbing trend” of mounting restrictions on freedom of expression. “We are concerned that the public prosecutor appears to have questioned and then released on bail Bassem Youssef on charges of insulting Islam and President Morsi,” US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington. “This, coupled with recent arrest warrants issued for other political activists, is evidence of a disturbing trend of growing restrictions on the freedom of expression.” Under Egypt’s legal system, complaints are filed to the public prosecutor, who decides whether there is enough evidence to refer the case to trial. Suspects can be detained during this stage of investigation. Rights lawyers say there have been four times as many lawsuits for insulting the president under Morsi than during the entire 30 years that Mubarak ruled.—AFP Gunmen attack Iraq’s gasfield, kill 3 workers on Monday. Earlier, a suicide bomber driving a fuel tanker packed with explosives hit a local government compound and killed at least nine people in the northern city of Tikrit. Attacks on Iraq’s energy sector are less common, and usually hit pipelines, as country builds up its oil production to more than 3 million barrels per day after signing massive deals with foreign companies to develop its reserves. Iraq, which holds the world’s 10th largest gas reserves, has said the priority for the Akkas field would be domestic consumption once it starts production. Baghdad signed a final deal for the field, which has reserves of 5.6 trillion cubic feet, in October 2011 after months of delays because of disagreements between the central government and Anbar provincial officials over terms. —Reuters
BAMAKO: The EU began a top-to-toe overhaul of Mali’s ragtag army yesterday to help its soldiers take the place of foreign troops defending the west African nation against an Islamist insurgency. The first of four battalions arrived in Koulikoro, 60 kilometers from the capital Bamako, to train under battle-hardened European instructors as part of a wider effort to bring the army up to scratch as quickly as possible. “The 570 men of the Malian army have just arrived at the training site in Koulikoro,” Lieutenant-Colonel Philippe de Cussac, spokesman for the European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM) said. “Initially, the training will be very general. Afterwards, there will be a specialized training in telecommunications, artillery and engineering. We will also train special forces elite snipers.” Around 200 trainers will come from France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Ireland, de Cussac said. France, which sent 4,000 troops to its former colony in January to block an advance on the capital from the north by Al-Qaeda-linked fighters, is the lead country in the 10-week mission. Paris is preparing to hand over to a UN-mandated African force of 6,300 in the coming weeks, placing a spotlight on Mali’s poorly-paid, illequipped and badly-organized armed forces. The Malian military fell apart last year when well-armed Islamist extremists seized the country’s vast northern desert, terrorizing locals with amputations and executions performed under a brutal interpretation of sharia Islamic law. The French-led intervention quickly drove out the insurgents but significant pockets of resistance remain in the Ifoghas mountains as well as in the northern cities of Gao and Timbuktu. In the latest spate of violence, Islamist gunmen used the confusion created by a suicide bomber on Saturday to infiltrate Timbuktu and engage French and Malian troops in fighting that left at least eight rebels, a soldier and a civilian dead. A spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, one of three armed Islamist groups operating in northern Mali, was quoted by the Mauritanian online news portal ANI, as threatening France and its allies with “more jihadist actions”. Around half of the estimated 6,000 remaining Malian troops will train over the next year with the EUTM, which INTERNATIONAL EU troops begin Mali training mission will run on a budget of 12.3 million euros ($15.8 million), with a first batch expected to be ready for combat in the north by early July. Once trained, each of the four Mali battalions will have a unified command with an infantrymobile core, backed by artillery and engineering, and a logistics component. French General Francois Lecointre, who heads the EUTM, said the Malian army’s poor and “heterogeneous” equipment, made up of material donated by richer nations over two decades, was a big problem for the mission. The bigger issue however is the army’s lack of a clear hierarchy and chain of command, with little team spirit, he said. The United States had initially begun an ambitious program to train a new generation of Malian officers as part of a counter-terrorism program in North and West Africa but the effort ended in embarrassment for Washington. One of the officers who attended several courses with the US military, Captain Amadou Sanago, led a coup against the Malian government last March, prompting Washington to suspend its security assistance. And when militants pushed out of the north last year, some of the Malian army units ended up defecting, with Napolitano hosts talks as deadlock drags on KANO: Weekend attacks on three com- ROME: Italian President Giorgio Napolitano yesterday hosted experts from two working groups aimed at finding common ground for bickering political leaders who have failed to form a new government as Prime Minister Mario Monti’s cabinet limps on. Elections in the euro-zone’s third largest economy more than a month ago resulted in a threeway split between Pier Luigi Bersani’s centre-left, Silvio Berlusconi’s centreright and a new protest party led by former comedian Beppe Grillo. Talks have proved inconclusive and Napolitano on Saturday said he was setting up two working groups-one for political reforms, the other for economic ones-as a way of trying to forge an agreement at least on a few fundamental reforms. The groups include constitutional expert Valerio Onida and will look into cutting bureaucratic costs and reducing the number of lawmakers in the Italian parliament - 945 including deputies in the lower house and senators in the upper house. Emergency economic measures are also on the agenda as the country endures its sixth consecutive quarter of recession and the unemployment rate remains close to record highs at 11.6 percent. Some experts say Napolitano’s initiative could be aimed at forging a crossparty government deal similar to the one struck in the Netherlands in October 2012 two months after inconclusive polls. But Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party has already criticized the move as a delaying tactic, insisting there should be new elections if no solution can be found to the deadlock. A recent poll indicated that the 76-year-old Berlusconi-a scandal-tainted billionaire tycoon who has called for the abolition of an unpopular property tax imposed by Monti and criticized Germany’s role in Europe would win elections. “The house is burning. No one would understand more delays,” said Angelino Alfano, secretary general of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party. The SWG poll published last week gave Berlusconi 32.5 percent compared to 29.6 percent for Bersani. “Napolitano wanted to send a reassuring signal... and show that 10 intelligent and well-intentioned people can agree on some useful objectives for the future of the country,” said Sergio Romano, a columnist for the Corriere della Sera daily. The 87-year-old Napolitano’s tactic appeared to be working, with borrowing costs down and the Milan stock market trading in positive territory after falling slightly at the start of the session. Napolitano considered resigning over the crisis but was persuaded not to by European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, Italian media reported. A resignation “would have exposed the country to a very grave risk in terms of its international credibility,” Ugo De Siervo, former head of Italy’s top court, said in La Repubblica daily. De Siervo said Napolitano’s plan was to “encourage the parties to show greater responsibility” and prepare for the end of his mandate on May 15, by which time parliament has to elect a new president. Napolitano cannot call new elections because he is in the last months of his seven-year mandate but his successor would be able to do so. Monti’s government will stay in place with interim powers until a new government is formed.— AFP UK ‘plotted’ to kill Congo’s Lumumba LONDON: A former British intelligence officer claimed that Britain played a role in the assassination of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, one of her friends has told the British media. Before she died three years ago, Daphne Park-who was sent as an MI6 officer to the Belgian Congo in 1959 - told a fellow member of Britain’s House of Lords that she had helped coordinate Britain’s role in Lumumba’s elimination two years later. The claim will spark surprise because the former colonial power Belgium concluded in 2001 that it had a “moral responsibility” in the assassination of Lumumba, Congo’s first democraticallyelected prime minister. David Lea said in a letter to the London Review of Books that he had a conversation with Park in 2009 — a year before she died-in which they discussed the likelihood of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency being involved in Lumumba’s death. “It so happens that I was having a cup of tea with Daphne Park a few months before she died,” Lea said. “I mentioned the uproar surrounding Lumumba’s abduction and murder, and recalled the theory that MI6 might have had something to do with it. ‘We did,’ she replied. ‘I organized it’.” “It was a conversation-stopper. I was stunned,” Lea said, adding that he concluded from the exchange that whoever was directly culpable for Lumumba’s death, the British government was “at the centre of the spider’s web”. His letter was in response to a new book on the British secret services called “Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire”. Park is said to have had a high degree of influence in the region after she was appointed consul and first secretary in Leopoldville-now known as Kinshasa-in 1959, one year before Congo won its independence from Belgium. The CIA is also believed to have played a role in organizing the plot to eliminate Lumumba, because of his growing alliance with the Soviet Union. Lumumba was killed by firing squad after a coup led by Joseph- Desire Mobutu. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire. It is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lumumba’s death is to be the subject of a judicial probe in Belgium after a court gave the go-ahead last year.— AFP LEOPOLDVILLE: File picture taken in December 1960, shows soldiers guarding Patrice Lumumba (right), Prime Minister of then Congo-Kinshasa, and Joseph Okito (left), vice-president of the Senate, upon their arrest in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa). — AFP Tanzania quarry collapse kills 13 ARUSHA: At least 13 people were killed in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha when the sides of a quarry caved in, a local official said yesterday. “There are 13 dead but rescuers managed to save two people,” said Mulongo Magessa, governor of Arusha province, of the accident that took place late Monday morning, days after a building collapse killed 36 people in the east African nation’s commercial capital. “One person remains in hospital, the other has been released,” Magessa added. Those who died were believed to have been digging in the small quarry for rocks and sand for use at construction projects in Arusha. Security forces and local volunteers pulled out the bodies of the victims on Monday, local media said. Tanzania has been hit by heavy seasonal rains causing flash floods that weakened the sides of the quarry, which is understood to have been illegal. Digging at the site was declared illegal in 2006 after a similar incident in which several people died. Meanwhile, rescuers said they had ended the search in the port city of Dar es Salaam four days after the building collapse, saying the final number killed in that accident was 36. “We have now called off the rescue operation,” the city’s commissioner Saidi Mecky Sadicky told reporters. Two children were among the dead. Local residents had turned out to supply rescuers with food, water and medication. “I want to thank all those who participated in this exercise, the people of Dar es Salaam and Tanzania will forever be grateful,” Sadicky added. Between 60 and 70 were initially thought to have been around the partially-built 16-storey building when it came crashing down on Friday morning in the Kisutu area of the coastal city. Sadicky said investigations were continuing into the cause of the building collapse, and that police were holding eight people for questioning. Dar es Salaam, a major port for east Africa and home to some four million people, is rapidly expanding, and is one of the world’s fastest growing cities, according to United Nations figures. Construction projects crowd the city, including several high-rise developments, although the majority of people live in simple, informal housing.—AFP munities in volatile and ethnically divided central Nigeria have left 19 people dead and displaced some 4,500 others, a local official said yesterday. The attacks were believed to be reprisals in a dispute involving mainly Muslim Fulanis and the mostly Christian Atakar ethnic group. “From the death toll we’ve compiled, 19 people including women and children were killed by gunmen we suspect to be Fulani herdsmen in attacks on three communities on Saturday night through Sunday,” local government official Kumai Badu said of the violence in the Kaura district, a remote region of Kaduna state. Fulanis in the area tend to be nomadic herdsmen, while Atakar are mainly farmers. Land disputes often flare up between the two groups. Badu added that some 4,500 people were displaced and two camps had been set up to house them. “Apart from the gun weapons and hardware falling into the hands of Islamist militants. It was a sobering outcome for the US, which has touted the idea of training foreign armies to fight terror threats instead of launching more ground wars with WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 American troops. The experience helped shape the Obama administration’s cautious response to the French military intervention in Mali, with the US providing only limited support to French forces.— AFP TIMBUKTU: Malian soldiers enter the historic city of Timbuktu occupied for 10 months by Islamists who imposed a harsh form of sharia.— AFP 19 killed in Nigeria Communities battle in volatile central Nigeria attacks, the assailants also set fire to homes,” he said. Kaduna state police commissioner Olufemi Adenaike confirmed that “some villages were attacked by gunmen suspected to be Fulani”, but said he could not yet provide a death toll. “There has been some misunderstanding between the Fulani and the Atakar communities for some time,” he said. “We have dispatched our men for a thorough assessment of the situation.” Southern Kaduna state, where the attack occurred, is located in the Middle Belt region dividing Nigeria’s mainly Christian south and its mostly Muslim north. Hundreds were killed in riots in southern Kaduna after 2011 elections, with most of the victims Muslim, according to Human Rights Watch. Speaking of the weekend violence, Badu said “the attack we believe was in response to the poisoning of some herds by some local farmers over encroachment into their farmlands”. Dozens have been killed over the last couple of weeks in similar ethnic violence in neighboring Plateau state. Last week, violence involving rival ethnic groups killed at least 36 people and left dozens of houses burnt in Plateau. Those casualties were in addition to at least 23 people killed in attacks the previous week in Plateau on March 20 and 21. Security was boosted in those areas for Sunday’s Easter holiday, as was the case in much of the country, since churches have previously been targeted for attacks on Christian holidays. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and most populous nation with some 160 million people and 250 ethnic groups. Ethnic violence regularly breaks out over local politics, land or other factors. Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has also extended a deadly insurgency into parts of the country’s centre in addition to its attacks in the north, further complicating the situation.— AFP
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