16 Aug 2009
Nigerian police have arrested over 600 unarmed men in a raid on an isolated Muslim community in the western state of Niger.

A 1,000-strong police force raided the Darul Islam (House of Islam) community on Saturday, weeks after a radical Nigerian sect clashed with police, leaving more than 800 people dead.

Police say they received reports of the sect's activities from neighboring communities and local officials.

Saturday's operations were met with no resistance, and no weapons were found after house searches, local media said.

Last month's violent clashes with Boko Haram sect, called 'the Nigerian Taliban' by police officials for their alleged spiritual following of the insurgents in Afghanistan, have raised concerns in the multi-ethnic West African nation.

Clerics in the country's Muslim-majority northwestern parts, where the conflict broke out, said that they had warned Abuja over Boko Haram, as the government launched an investigation to determine how a small household group could orchestrate an uprising of such scale.

presstv