German engineer kidnapped in Kano, Nigeria
Police officers enter the house of a suspected member of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, Uzairu Abba Abdullahi, in the Tsamiyar Boka neighborhood of Kano on Jan. 24, 2012.
A German engineer was kidnapped today in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, the site of coordinated bomb and gun attacks last week that killed as many as 256 people, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.
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Musa Majiya, a police spokesman in the city, told Bloomberg Businessweek that the kidnappers handcuffed the engineer, who works for Dantata & Sawoe Construction Co. Ltd., a local company, and forced him into the trunk of their car before driving away.
The attackers are unknown, but some suspect Nigerian militants, perhaps from Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which models itself on Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, could be involved.
According to Reuters:
Kidnapping of foreigners has become a common tactic of al Qaeda's north African wing, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which operates out of Nigeria's neighbor Niger, as well as Mali, Algeria and Mauritania, and which officials believe has links with Nigerian militants.
The police rounded up 158 suspected Boko Haram members earlier this week.
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Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan challenged the leaders of Boko Haram today to identify themselves and state their demands as a basis for talks, BBC News reported.
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