Nigeria's military said they had restored order in the northern town of Maiduguri Thursday after destroying a mosque and compound where Islamist militants were hiding out, according to dpa. Bloody battles have raged across the north of Nigeria since Sunday morning when Boko Haram, a group sometimes called the Nigerian Taliban, launched a series of attacks on police stations. Over 300 people have believed to have died, the majority of them militants, although civilians are also among the dead. Troops on Wednesday laid siege to the compound of Mohammed Yusuf, the group's leader, in Maiduguri, Borno state, the culmination of days of operations against the militants. A thousand extra troops were sent to the town. The armed shelled Yusuf's compound, reducing most of it to rubble, and then stormed the mosque. Blood-stained bodies of young men, many of them clad in white robes, littered the streets of the town after the battle. Some reports suggest that as many of 100 militants, including the sect's deputy leader, were killed in the final army assault. However, Yusuf and dozens of his followers have escaped, Major General Saleh Maina, the officer in charge of the operation, said. Residents of Maiduguri said that fighting had stopped and the streets were quiet mid-Thursday.
