Security forces in northern Nigeria on Thursday captured the leader of a militant Islamic sect responsible for days of unrest which have killed more than 180 people and displaced thousands, Reuters reported.
Radical preacher Mohammed Yusuf, whose Boko Haram sect wants a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law) across Africa's most populous nation, was seized after a manhunt involving military helicopters and armed police.
"Mohammed Yusuf has been arrested. He is now at the Giwa barracks (in the northern city of Maiduguri)," Borno state police commissioner Christopher Dega told reporters.
Army and police earlier battled the remnants of his sect in Maiduguri after shelling his compound. Bursts of gunfire rang out and helicopters hovered overhead as the security forces went from door to door hunting his followers.
The violence erupted when members of the group were arrested on Sunday in Bauchi state, some 400 km (250 miles) southwest of Maiduguri, on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station.
Yusuf's supporters, armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs, then went on the rampage in several states across northern Nigeria, attacking churches, police stations, prisons and government buildings.
President Umaru Yar'Adua, on an official visit to Brazil, spoke by telephone with northern governors and urged traditional and religious leaders to use Friday prayers to warn people about the dangers of such sects.
"The president stated that religious groups such as 'Boko Haram', which seeks to disrupt the peace and security of the Nigerian state, should not be the bride of any true Muslim individual or group," his spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said.
Nigeria's Muslim umbrella group Jama'atu Nasril Islam has already condemned the violence and backed the security forces.