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Relative of slain Nigeria sect leader shot dead after talks with former president
A relative of the slain leader of a radical Muslim sect in Nigeria was shot dead Saturday, only two days after taking part in peace talks led by a former president, police said.
Babakura Fugu’s killing comes as Nigeria’s weak central government struggles to stop attacks carried out by the feared Boko Haram sect. The group claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 car bombing of the United Nations headquarters that killed 23 people.
His death also raises concerns about who controls the sect, which has reported links to two other al-Qaida-affiliated terror groups in Africa, and whether its fighters want to negotiate an end to their increasingly bloody sectarian attacks.
Boko Haram later claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to the BBC’s Hausa language radio service, a trusted source of news throughout Nigeria’s Muslim north. The claim could not immediately be independently verified.
A lone gunman approached Fugu near his home Saturday close to the site of Boko Haram’s former main mosque in Maiduguri, a city in the far reaches of northeast Nigeria approaching the Sahara Desert.
The gunman pulled a Kalashnikov rifle from inside the folds of his traditional robes and shot Fugu to death, Borno state police commissioner Simeone Midenda said.
No one else was wounded in the attack and the gunman apparently walked away, Midenda said. The commissioner said no arrests have been made in the attack.
