At least eight people died and dozens were injured on Saturday in violent riots in the northern city of Kano that spilled over from a 5,000-strong protest at US-led air strikes on Afghanistan.
State police commissioner Yakubu Bello Uba told reporters a dusk-to-dawn curfew had been imposed on the city, the largest in northern Nigeria.
Around 5,000 people attended the rally organized by the Muslim Youth Congress shortly after the Muslim Jummat service on Friday, near the Emir's palace in the city.
"I can count at least eight bodies along the Sabo-gari, Aminu Kano, Kastina and Ibrahim Taiwo areas of the city," an AFP correspondent who visted the scenes reported.
Kano State police commissioner Yakubu Bello Uba confirmed the riots but said the toll was lower.
"Only four people were killed. Our men have quelled the riots. Everywhere is now calm," he told reporters.
Dozens of people were also injured in the riots that spread across the mainly Muslim city, he said.
But despite the police boss assurance of calm, sporadic gunfire by soldiers and police deployed in the streets of Kano could still be heard at 5:00 p.m. (1600 GMT), the correspondent said.
Kano, Nigeria's second largest commercial center after Lagos, also has the largest Muslim population in the country.
In the past 20 years, Kano has been a hotbed for bloody religious riots.
The police boss said the rioters burnt houses and vehicles, while some shops at the Sabo-gari markets were looted.
Sabon-gari is the district mostly inhabited by people from southern Nigeria and mostly non-Muslims.
Uba said a dusk-to-dawn curfew from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 am has been imposed to stop the riots from escalating.
At the rally on Friday, a spokesman for the organizers, Ibrahim Umar Kabo, said the event was staged to drum support for Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The peaceful rally soon turned violent when the protesters sighted a police van and a bus belonging to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, setting them ablaze.
Five US flags and an effigy of President George W. Bush were burnt by the placard-carrying demonstrators.
Some of the placards denounced the United States while others expressed support for bin Laden. "May God destroy America", "America and Israel are the real terrorists" and "We answer your call Osama," some of them read -- KANO, Nigeria (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
