Thirty members of a militant Islamist sect who fled after the group’s recent armed uprising in north Nigeria that claimed at least 800 lives have been arrested, a police officer said Thursday.
The members of the Boko Haram group were arrested Wednesday outside Yola, Adamawa State capital, where they fled from Maiduguri, centre of last month’s uprising, following a military crackdown, the officer told AFP by telephone from Maiduguri, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The 30 arrested young men were brought here yesterday (Wednesday) in two buses and 10 of them confessed that they received training in bomb-making in Afghanistan,” said the officer who is involved in the investigation of the suspects.
He said the men were arrested following a tip-off when five of them left their hide-out and went to Yola to buy food and other basic needs.
“Their appearance — disheveled and bearded — gave them away and people alerted the police who arrested them and raided the hide-out where 25 others were rounded up,” he said.
He would not say whether weapons were found with them.
Members of the radical Islamist sect who call themselves the Taliban clashed in July with security forces in several northern Nigerian states.
At least 800 people were killed in the violence.
Sect leader Mohammed Yusuf, 39, was killed after his capture by security forces in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State.
Maiduguri city has for centuries been renowned for its Islamic scholarship, producing some of west Africa’s best known clerics.