KANO A mob killed 13 people in an attack on a police station in the northern Nigerian city of Kano yesterday, four days after unidentified gunmen shot dead a hardline Muslim cleric.

Police said that the mob, suspected of belonging to a radical Islamic sect, burnt the police station in the Panshekara district and killed the officer in charge, his wife and 11 other officers. The sect killed a divisional police officer in an attack in the Sharada district last week. Kano is one of 12 northern Nigerian states that introduced Sharia in 2000. The move alienated Christian minorities and sparked violence. Southern Nigeria is predominantly Christian.

Tensions are running high in the city of six million because of state elections held on Saturday and a presidential vote on April 21. It was not clear if the latest violence was connected to the elections. (Reuters)

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