Two people were killed in Nigeria following a violent protest against Israel's killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual head of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, witnesses said Saturday.
Some 1,000 members of a radical Nigerian Muslim group called "Shiite" held a demonstration in the northern city of Kaduna on Friday to commemorate the killing last month, local journalist Ibrahim Musa told AFP.
He said police fired teargas and live bullets into the crowd, who responded by throwing stones at the police.
One Shiite member was shot dead on the spot, while another died later of gunshot wounds in the hospital, he said, adding that seven other people were injured.
The 67-year-old wheelchair-bound cleric Yassin was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike in Gaza City as he left a mosque after morning prayers, prompting the radical movement he founded to declare all-out war on Israel.
Protests have erupted around the Muslim world since Yassin's death, which Israel has defended as an act of legitimate defence against a man who inspired a movement responsible for dozens of attacks against civilians.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004

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