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At Least Eight Die in Anti-U.S. Riots in Nigerian City
KANO, Nigeria, Oct 13 (News Agencies) - 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 against U.S.-led air strikes on Afghanistan, news agencies reported.
State police commissioner Yakubu Bello Uba told reporters a dusk-to-dawn curfew had been imposed on the city, the largest in northern Nigeria, and that police had been ordered to "shoot trouble-makers on sight."
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent who visited the scene said he had counted at least eight bodies in the Sabo-gari, Aminu Kano, Kastina and Ibrahim Taiwo areas of the city.
Kano State police commissioner Yakubu Bello Uba confirmed the riots had taken place but said the toll was lower.
"Only four people were killed. Our men have quelled the riots. Everywhere is now calm," he told reporters.
CNN, however, reported that sixteen people were killed in the riots, including six schoolgirls.
Dozens of people were also injured in the riots that spread across the mainly Muslim city, he said.
But despite the police assurance of calm, sporadic gunfire by soldiers and police deployed in the streets of Kano could still be heard at 5 p.m. (11 a.m. EST), the correspondent said.
Around 5,000 people had attended the anti-U.S. rally organized by the Muslim Youth Congress shortly after the Muslim Friday prayer service near the Emir's palace in the city.
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 chief said the rioters burned houses and vehicles, while some shops at the Sabo-gari markets were looted.
Sabo-gari is the district mostly inhabited by people from southern Nigeria and mostly non-Muslims.
Residents told AFP several churches and two mosques have been burned down.
They also said the Kano offices of some media houses like the Punch, Vanguard and
Nigerian Tribune newspapers and the Source magazine had been burnt down.
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 U.S. suspect in the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The peaceful rally soon turned violent when protesters sighted a police van and a bus belonging to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, setting them ablaze.
The placard-carrying demonstrators burned five U.S. flags and an effigy of President George W. Bush.
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," were among the messages on the placards.
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