Nigerian Islamist fighters 'flee' 尼日利亚回教反抗者“逃跑”

Members of a Nigerian Islamist radical¹ sect² have fled the northern city of Maiduguri after the military overran their enclave, reports say.

报道称，尼日利亚回教徒激进分子成员在军队越过他们占领的土地之后逃到北部城市杜古利。

belongings³ lay in the streets of Maiduguri on Wednesday" width="466" border="0" src="http://www.enread.com/upimg/090730/4_003502_1.jpg" />
Bodies (in the background) of suspected Islamists and their belongings lay in the streets of Maiduguri on Wednesday

The army has stormed the base of Boko Haram's leader and militants⁴ were fleeing the city, according to journalists and the army.

It came after the military drafted（起草，征兵） in 1,000 extra soldiers.

Earlier reports said the army had lost ground to militants who were using civilians⁵ as human shields.

At one point the local authorities said sect members had taken over six districts of the city.

Boko Haram says it is fighting against Western education. It believes Nigeria's government is being corrupted⁶ by Western ideas and wants to see Taliban-style rule imposed across Nigeria.

More than 200 people have been killed in four days of clashes since an estimated 1,000 well-armed militants began attacking police stations and government buildings in Maiduguri.

President Umaru Yar'Adua earlier ordered Nigeria's national security agencies to take all necessary action to contain and repel⁷（逐退，反驳） attacks by the extremists.

The BBC's Caroline Duffield reports from Lagos that the sect（宗派，教派） appears to be larger than the authorities previously⁸ thought and the government has been taken aback by events.

The officer commanding the operation, Col Ben Ahanotu, said on Wednesday night: "We have taken over their enclave（被包围的领土）, they are on the run and we are going after them," reports AFP news agency.

The military told the BBC personal items found on the bodies of young men indicated that many had come from neighbouring Chad and Niger.

Security forces flooded into Maiduguri and began shelling sect leader Mohammed Yusuf's compound on Tuesday.

Fierce fighting continued through the night and into Wednesday with the militants returning heavy gunfire.

Also on Wednesday police freed about 100 women and children who were being held by the sect in a building in Maiduguri.

The captives told the BBC they had been held six days, living on dates（枣椰子） and water.

Many of the women said their husbands were Boko Haram followers⁹, and that they had been forced to travel to Maiduguri from other parts of Nigeria.

Four states in northern Nigeria have been affected¹⁰ by Boko Haram unrest - Borno, Bauchi, Kano and Yobe.

A total of 103 deaths were officially reported in Maiduguri and reports say more than 50 people died in Bauchi and Yobe, but the true number of casualties may be much greater. There were also reports of Christian¹¹ churches being torched.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.

The country's 150 million people are split（分离，分开） almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians¹² in the south.