Curfew in north Nigeria cities after sect attacks

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Officials say Nigeria's military has conducted door-to-door searches in two north Nigeria cities following repeated and bloody attacks by a radical Islamist sect.

Yobe state police commissioner Patrick Egbuniwe said the curfews Saturday affected the cities of Damaturu and Potiskum, both frequent targets by the sect known as Boko Haram. Egbuniwe said he didn't know when the curfew would be lifted, as the military hopes to flush out Boko Haram gunmen living in neighborhoods in the two cities.

Boko Haram has waged a bloody fight against Nigeria's weak central government and has been blamed for killing more than 680 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

Officials have blamed the sect for an attack Thursday night on a pediatric hospital in Maiduguri that killed an intern.

Pakistani bounty placed on anti-Islam filmmaker

A girl is photographed as she attends an anti-U.S. demonstration with religious students in the compound of the Red Mosque in Islamabad September 22, 2012. About 200 religious students from the Jamia Hafsa seminary gathered at the Red Mosque to protest against an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. mocking the Prophet Mohammad. The girl's headband reads, "the Prophet above is calling us". REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

Supporters of the Pakistani religious political party Jamaat-e-Islami burn a U.S. flag during an anti-U.S. demonstration in Mansehra September 22, 2012. REUTERS/Abrar Tanoli

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani minister offered $100,000 on Saturday to anyone who kills the maker of an online video which insults Islam, as sporadic protests rumbled on across parts of the Muslim world.

"I announce today that this blasphemer, this sinner who has spoken nonsense about the holy Prophet, anyone who murders him, I will reward him with $100,000," Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told a news conference, to applause.

"I invite the Taliban brothers and the al Qaeda brothers to join me in this blessed mission."

A spokesman for Pakistan's prime minister said the government disassociated itself from the minister's statement.

While many Muslim countries saw mostly peaceful protests on Friday, fifteen people were killed in Pakistan during demonstrations over the video.

People involved in the film, an amateurish 13-minute clip of which was posted on YouTube, have said it was made by a 55-year-old California man, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.

Nakoula has not returned to his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Cerritos since leaving voluntarily to be interviewed by federal authorities. His family has since gone into hiding.

In the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Saturday, thousands of Islamist activists clashed with police who used batons and teargas to clear an unauthorized protest. In Kano, northern Nigeria's biggest city, Shi'ite Muslims burned American flags, but their protest passed off peacefully.

The demonstrations were less widespread than on Friday, but showed anger still simmered around the world against the film and other insults against Islam in the West, including cartoons published by a French satirical magazine.

Showing continued nervousness among Western governments, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called on Muslim countries to protect foreign embassies.

"The governments in host countries have the unconditional obligation to protect foreign missions. If that doesn't happen, we will emphatically criticize that and if it still doesn't happen it won't go without consequences," he told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday

Germany's embassy in Sudan was stormed on September 14 as was the U.S. mission in the capital Khartoum where there were deadly clashes between police and protesters against the film.

MILITIA OUSTED IN BENGHAZI

In the Libyan city of Benghazi, a crowd forced out an Islamist militia some U.S. officials blame for a deadly attack on the U.S. consulate during one of the first protests, on September 11.

Ansar al-Sharia, which denies it was involved in the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, quit the city after its base was stormed by Libyans angry at armed groups that control parts of the country.

That might go some way to vindicate U.S. President Barack Obama's faith in Libya's nascent democracy where Ambassador Christopher Stevens had worked to help rebels oust Muammar Gaddafi only to be killed in a surge of anti-Americanism.

"It's the view of this administration that it's a pretty clear sign from the Libyan people that they're not going to trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of the mob," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

"It's also an indication that the Libyan people are not comfortable with the voices of a few extremists and those who advocate and perpetrate violence, to drown out the voices and aspirations of the Libyan people." [ID:nL5E8KM49W]

In Egypt, the leader of Egypt's main ultra orthodox Islamist party, that shares power with the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood, said the film and the French cartoons were part of a rise of anti-Islamic actions since the Arab spring revolts.

"A new reality in the Middle East has emerged after the toppling of autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak and others through democratic elections that brought newly-elected Islamist governments," Emad Abdel Ghaffour, leader of the Salafist Nour Party, told Reuters.

"There are interest groups who seek to escalate hatred to show newly-elected governments and their Muslim electorate as undemocratic," he said.

Nour, whose party is the second largest in parliament and plays a formidable force in Egypt's new politics, said President Mohamed Mursi should demand "legislation or a resolution to criminalize "contempt of Islam as a religion and its Prophet" at the U.N. General Assembly next week.

(Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Pakistan, Anis Ahmed in Dhaka and; Tom Cocks in Lagos; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Sophie Hares)

Iran detains centrist ex-president's daughter

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's official news agency says authorities have detained the daughter of influential ex-president and political centrist Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The Sunday report by IRNA says Tehran's judiciary department took Faezeh Hashemi into custody late Saturday to serve a six-month sentence on charges of making propaganda against the ruling system.

Earlier this year a court convicted her and banned her from political activity for five years. Her lawyer said the accusations were related to interviews she gave to news websites.

Since the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, in which Rafsanjani supported Ahmadinejad's reformist challenger, his family has come under pressure from hardliners.

In recent months, there are indications that the 78-year-old former president, who favors a more moderated approach to the West, may be making a political comeback.

Gas drilling protests held in US, other countries

Suicide bomber hits north Nigeria Catholic church

BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) — A suicide bomber attacked a Catholic church conducting Mass in northern Nigeria on Sunday, injuring and killing an unknown number of people in a region under assault by a radical Islamist sect.

An Associated Press journalist heard the explosion after 9 a.m. Sunday in the city of Bauchi, which has seen a number of bombings and shootings blamed on the sect known as Boko Haram. The blast appeared to hit a parking lot alongside the St. John's Catholic Church in the city.

Police and military surrounded the church and did not allow journalists inside the cordon. Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, said a suicide bomber targeted the church.

"Rescuers have evacuated the dead and injured," Shuaib said.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north, has been waging an increasingly bloody fight against nation's weak central government. More than 680 people have died in drive-by killings and bombings blamed on Boko Haram this year alone, according to an AP count. The sect has demanded the release of all its captive members and has called for strict Shariah law to be implemented across the entire country.

The sect has used suicide car bombs against churches in the past, most noticeably a 2011 Christmas Day attack on a Catholic church in Madalla near Nigeria's capital. That attack and assaults elsewhere in the country killed at least 44 people. An unclaimed car bombing on Easter in Kaduna killed at least 38 people on a busy roadway after witnesses say it was turned away from a church.

Attacks against churches by the sect have waned in recent weeks. Nigeria's military claimed it killed the sect's spokesman and a commander Sept. 17 outside the city of Kano, potentially shaking up a sect that has continued attacks despite a tighter military presence in northern cities.

The killing of members of the sect's senior leadership comes as the group recently changed some of its tactics and attacked more than 30 mobile phone towers throughout northern Nigeria, disrupting communications in a nation reliant on cellular phones.

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