Nigeria’s Taliban-Inspired Uprising Worsens Divide

A mounting campaign of violence in northern Nigeria by Islamic militants inspired by Afghanistan’s Taliban movement is deepening religious tensions in Africa’s top oil producer before elections in April.

A group known as Boko Haram, or “Western education is a sin,” has carried out a series of attacks, including multiple bomb blasts on Christmas Eve in the Plateau state capital, Jos, that killed 80 people, in its bid to establish Islamic rule in northern Nigeria. Since then, more than 200 people have died in sectarian violence in Plateau state alone, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.