Chance to rescue girls missed

The Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram more than three weeks ago were held in the same spot near their school for 11 days -but the authorities failed to act, the girls' relatives claimed yesterday.

In the latest attack on Nigeria's handling of the crisis, it was alleged that the girls languished in a camp only 30km from the northeast town of Chibok, from where they were abducted last month.

The Rev Enoch Mark, whose two daughters were among those kidnapped, said the Nigerian military had missed a crucial chance to rescue the girls.

"For a good 11 days our daughters were sitting in one place," he said.

The terrorists have blown up one of the main bridges into the region in what might be an attempt to frustrate efforts to rescue the girls.

The latest violence was in the town of Liman Kara, prompting about 3000 people to flee.

Last weekend about 300 people were reported to have been killed in the remote northeastern town of Warabe.

Some of the residents fleeing Liman Kara said the insurgents had blown up the bridge that linked Borno state - Boko Haram's main stronghold - to Adama state to the south.

Teams of British, American and French experts have flown into the capital, Abuja, to assist in trying to rescue the girls.

But a prominent Nigerian Islamic scholar, Ahmed Mahmud-Gumi, speaking in the northern city of Kaduna, warned yesterday that having foreign military experts on Nigerian soil could worsen the conflict by drawing foreign extremists to West Africa.

"Foreign terrorists are eager to engage foreign forces, making Nigeria just another battleground like Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.

General Ibrahim Babangida, a former Nigerian military ruler, has urged his country's Muslims to stop extremists sullying the name of Islam.

"Islam enjoins you to live peacefully with your fellow human beings," he told the BBC's Hausa Service.

In Qatar, the International Union for Muslim Scholars also condemned "the terrible crimes" as "offensive to Islam" and "very far from Islamic teachings".

It called on Boko Haram to release the girls immediately.