Nigerian Islamic militant leader dies in police custody

The leader of a radical Islamic sect in northern Nigeria has been killed in police custody hours after being captured by security forces.

The militant preacher Mohammed Yusuf, whose Boko Haram sect has been responsible for clashes which have killed more than 180 in recent days, was captured after a search involving military helicopters and armed police. A Reuters reporter saw Yusuf at a military barracks in the northern city of Maiduguri after his capture. He had no visible injuries and was standing up. He was later transferred to the city's police headquarters where he died.

"He has been killed. You can come and see his body at the state police command headquarters," said Isa Azare, a police spokesman in Maiduguri.

Army and police earlier battled the remnants of Yusuf's sect – which wants a wider adoption of sharia law across Africa's most populous nation – after shelling his compound. Bursts of gunfire rang out as the security forces went from door-to-door in Maiduguri, hunting his followers.

The violence began when members of the group were arrested on Sunday in Bauchi state, 400km (250 miles) south-west of Maiduguri, on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station. Yusuf's supporters, armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs, went on the rampage in several states in northern Nigeria, attacking churches, police stations, jails and government buildings.

President Umaru Yar'Adua, on an official visit to Brazil, spoke by telephone with northern governors and urged traditional and religious leaders to use Friday prayers to warn people about the dangers of such sects. "The president stated that religious groups such as Boko Haram, which seeks to disrupt the peace and security of the Nigerian state, should not be the bride of any true Muslim individual or group," his spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sinful", is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Its members wear long beards and consider anyone not following their strict ideology, whether Christian or Muslim, as infidels. Its views are not espoused by the majority of Nigeria's Muslim population, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.