Coordinated attacks against Christian villages in Nigeria's Plateau State this weekend left 58 people dead, the Wall Street Journal reports. The assailants launched "sophisticated attacks" on 13 villages near the city of Jos early Saturday, said Mustapha Salisu, spokesman for a special task force of policemen and soldiers deployed to the area to curb violence. "They came in hundreds," he said. "Some had [police] uniforms, and some even had bulletproof vests." He said the task force fought back for hours and lost two policemen in the battle, which also claimed the lives of 14 civilians and 21 assailants and displaced more than 300 people. The leader of a Christian advocacy group blamed Muslim herdsmen of the Fulani ethnic group for the attacks, but Fulanis denied any involvement. Plateau State has been the site of increasing religious tension and violence in recent months as the Islamic terror group Boko Haram has declared a "war" to annihilate Nigerian Christians.
