* Attackers spray village mosque with bullets
* Violence on the rise in Nigeria's volatile north
KADUNA, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Armed bandits descended on a
village in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing 22 people, most
of them shot dead as they were leaving prayers at a mosque, the
state police commissioner said.
The attack happened in a remote village called Dogo Dawa in
Kaduna state, commissioner Olufemi Adenaike told a news
conference. He added that two of the robbers had also been
killed.
An investigation had revealed it was a revenge attack by the
armed gang because four of its members had been arrested by
vigilantes in the village and taken to the police.
"Following the arrest, some unidentified armed gang in
Kuyello village, mobilised in large numbers and stormed the
village in the early hours of Sunday in a bid to rescue the four
persons arrested," he said.
"The gang descended on innocent members of the village,
killing a total of 22 persons."
Most of the victims were killed as they left the village
mosque, although a number were also killed in their homes, he
said. He added that two of the gang members had been killed by
the vigilantes in revenge.
Like much of northern Nigeria, Kaduna is plagued by an
insurgency led by radical Islamist sect Boko Haram. That, and
weapons flooding in from its neighbours on the threshold of the
Sahara, have aggravated levels of violence in the region.
Armed robberies and local disputes degenerating into deadly
shootouts are increasingly common across the impoverished north.
Kaduna also lies close to Nigeria's volatile "Middle Belt",
where Nigeria's mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south
meet, and where tensions over land and ethnicity often erupt
into violence.
Abdullahi Muhammad, the traditional ruler and councillor of
Birnin Gwari, a local government area next door to the village,
earlier said the attack was carried out by a well known gang.
"The village had been terrorised by an armed group operating
from camps in the forest. These armed men mostly attack villages
and motorists along the busy Kaduna to Lagos highway," he said.
