A video posted on a militant Web site calls for Muslims in Nigeria to use "the sword and the spear" to rise up against Christians in Africa's most populous nation, according to a translation released Tuesday by a U.S. group that monitors militant sites.

The video on the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum, a Web site sympathetic to al-Qaida, comes in the wake of a series of religious massacres and riots in central Nigeria. The video shows television news footage and graphic images of those killed as a narrator tells viewers "the solution is jihad in the cause of Allah," according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group.

"Negotiations, dialogues and protests will not stop the advancement of the enemies and their massacres," the narrator says. "Nothing will stop them but the sword and the spear."

The narrator also says the "crusader West" is interested in Nigeria for its abundant oil reserves. He also refers to President Umaru Yar'Adua, a Muslim from northern Nigeria, as a "tyrant" who allowed for the killing of a sect leader whose group's attacks on police stations and rioting left more than 700 people dead in July.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Nigeria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

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