Associated Press

Police officers stand guard prior to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to the site of the suicide bombing at the police headquarters Kano, Nigeria, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. More than 150 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks by a radical Islamist sect in north Nigeria’s largest city, according to an internal Red Cross document seen Sunday by an Associated Press reporter. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Death toll in Nigeria attacks rises to more than 160

The death toll in a wave of bomb attacks in the northern Nigerian city of Kano reached more than 150 on Saturday, with one report putting the number of dead at 162, most of them police officers.
Suicide bombers and gunmen from the northern Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which U.S. officials fear has links with al-Qaida, attacked several police stations and other government buildings Friday evening. Targets in the well-coordinated attack included the secret service headquarters, immigration office and passport office.
The Kano government imposed a 24-hour curfew after the attack.
A spokesman for Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group opposes the Nigerian government and secular education and wants to impose Islamic law across Nigeria, including the mainly Christian south.
The attack was in revenge for recent arrests of Boko Haram members. During the attacks, gunmen reportedly freed other members of the sect in police custody.
With more fatalities than in any previous Boko Haram operation, the attacks increase the pressure for a resolution of the crisis on President Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian whose election last year triggered violent protests in the mainly Muslim north. Jonathan last year imposed a state of emergency in several areas of the north.
The attacks follow an embarrassing escape from custody by a Boko Haram militant, Kabiru Umar, who was accused of leading a bomb attack on a Catholic church in northern Niger state, which killed 44 people.