Sects and violence in Nigeria

AP via Washington Post:

Sectarian violence spread to three more Nigerian cities Friday, claiming at least seven lives and pushing up the death toll in days of killings to at least 127, residents and witnesses said.

Muslim youths in Potiskum, armed with machetes and clubs attacked shops belonging mostly to Christians and burned five churches, resident Ibrahim Dagbugur said. Four people were killed. Riot police battled for hours before they could bring the violence under control, other residents said.

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The fighting is the worst to hit Nigeria since 2004, when Muslim-Christian skirmishes in northern Nigeria's Plateau and Kano states killed more than 700 people. Nigeria's 130 million people are almost entirely split, Christians a majority in the south.

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Thousands of Nigerians have died in sectarian strife since 2000, when mostly Muslim northern states began implementing Islamic Shariah law.

The AP continues to blame the violence on the publication of the Danish cartoons rather than the irrational reaction to their publication by Muslim mobs. Also, no civilized society should be burdened by Shari'a law, a barbaric code from the middle ages. One of the problems in dealing with it is that too many in the West act like it is of some cultural importance when in fact it is only important to a death cult metality fostered by a facist group using religion as a cover for their totalitarian ambitions.