11 Nigerians Die in New Fundamentalist Muslim Violence in North

Eleven people, including three policemen, were killed Friday in a gun battle in predominantly Muslim northeastern Nigeria when officers moved in to arrest members of an Islamic fundamentalist sect, officials said.

Six policemen were wounded and 11 people arrested during the clash.

Earlier, the News Agency of Nigeria, as monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., said that hundreds of civilians were feared dead, adding that the army had been called in. The Nigerian agency now says it did not issue such a report.

By midafternoon, police reported, the fundamentalists had been dislodged from their stronghold in the town of Gombe, in Bauchi state. It was not clear if the leader of the Maitatsine sect, Yusufu Adamu, was among those arrested. The number of people involved in the disturbance also was not available.

In 1981, Nigeria’s army and air force put down bloody rioting in the northern city of Kano, violence traced to followers of Mohammed Marwa, after whom the sect is named.

Marwa was killed in that fighting and the sect was outlawed, but two years later similar riots in the northern cities of Kaduna and Maidiguri left hundreds dead.

In its early report Friday, the News Agency of Nigeria said fighting started when police tried to arrest Adamu. Many residents reportedly deserted their homes as shooting spread to other parts of town.

On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Tunde Idiagbon, a ranking leader of the military government in Lagos, said authorities had been alerted to subversive activities of foreign evangelists, Christian and Muslim, preaching doctrines described as alien to Nigeria.