Mob violence erupted in the northern Nigerian city of Kano after Islamic leaders warned of potential Muslim backlash following a massacre committed by a Christian ethnic militia.
An AFP reporter in the city counted at least 10 bodies, some of them badly burned, after mobs took to the street in protest at last week's slaughter of more than 200 Muslims in an attack on a remote rural town in central Nigeria.
Demonstrators set up road blocks in the mainly-Muslim Gyadi-Gyadi district and near the Bayero University of Kano, looted and burned Christian-run stores and smashed the windows of at least one police car.
A young girl, thought to be a Christian, was stabbed repeatedly in the back before she could be rescued by a motorcycle taxi driver.
Fighting broke out after a 10,000-strong crowd gathered to hear Islamic scholars denounce last week's attack, to demand action from Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo -- a Christian -- and to warn of further violence.
Meanwhile, Obasanjo held crisis talks with more Muslim leaders in the federal capital Abuja, where he told reporters: "We cannot continue this way".
"I talked sternly to those who called themselves leaders who seem not to have played the role of leadership. I believe that enough is enough. When leaders fail to lead, the situation deteriorates," he said.
"Whatever has to be done will be done. Whoever has to be punished will be punished, because we cannot allow lawlessness to become the order of the day."
In Kano, the chairman of Kano's Council of Ulema (Islamic scholars), Umar Ibrahim Kabo, told a huge crowd of supporters who had gathered at a city mosque: "The massacre in Shendam burns the heart of every Muslim".
On May 2 militants from the Christian Tarok ethnic group stormed the mainly Muslim market town of Yelwa, in the Shendam local government area of Plateau State, and killed between 200 and 300 people, according to government figures.
The Tarok argue that the Hausa and Fulani population of Yelwa are settlers on Christian land. Clashes between the two groups had already claimed hundreds of lives on both sides over the three years leading up to last week's raid.
Relations between Muslims and Christians -- which each make up about half of the 130-million strong population -- are often tense.
"We hereby give a seven-day ultimatum to President Obasanjo to take effective measures to bring these killings to an end or bear the blame of whatever happens after the ultimatum," Kabo told the Kano protest.
"Muslims are tired of the perennial massacres against their brethren in this country," he declared, accusing Plateau State Governor Joshua Dariye of working with US-led Western powers to exterminate Nigerian Muslims.
Dariye's spokesman denied the charge.
"The allegation is untrue. Neither Governor Joshua Dariye nor the state government has a hand in it (the attack). On this, I am very certain," Dauda Lamba told AFP by telephone from Plateau State's capital, Jos.
Protesters burned effigies of US President George Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Dariye before marching to the office of Kano's Islamist governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, who addressed the crowd.
"If these killings happening throughout the world and in Nigeria are committed to intimidate Muslims, we want to assure the perpetrators that it will only make us bolder," he said, as supporters chanted "God is great".
"As Muslims we want to call the attention of Obasanjo, to let him know that peace and the rule of law have conditions," he warned
"We are ready to live in peace and be law abiding, but if our lives and honour are violated we are ready to law down our lives to protect them."
Shekarau called on his supporters not to take out their frustrations on the innocent, but shortly after the rally mobs of young men began attacking Christian-run businesses, setting at least five stores and a truck on fire.
After meeting representatives of the Ulema in Abuja, Obasanjo said: "We will not allow the situation in Plateau State to continue to deteriorate. We have lost enough lives unnecessarily.
"I will appeal to you to please restrain our Muslim brothers, leaders all over the country. Because if you will go for an eye for an eye, this country will be bloody. And that is not what I believe the religion of Islam teaches."
He also urged Muslim leaders to tone down the anti-Western rhetoric, saying: "I believe we are the worst enemies of ourselves ... do we now blame that on America, Saudi Arabia or Britain? We must blame it on ourselves."
Leaders of the Hausa community in Yelwa, say that more than 600 people were killed in last week's attack. Obasanjo has ordered 600 extra police officers to the Shendam area to keep the peace.