"We really want to get this job done in the shortest possible time, therefore, we have received reinforcements of 1,000 troops," said a source who asked not to be named because of military protocol.

"They arrived this afternoon to complement troops on the ground," the source told AFP in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the base of the self-styled Nigerian Taliban who have fought security forces since Sunday.

The soldiers were flown in from Calabar, the capital city of Cross River, one of Nigeria's southern oil-producing states.

Troops have struggled since Monday to clamp down on a radical Islamist sect that went on a rampage, torching government buildings and sparking fierce clashes with security forces.

Four days have seen the death toll surging past 300 and thousands of people forced from their homes, the majority in Maiduguri.

Fighting on Wednesday was centred around five neighbourhoods and was at its most intense in Bayan Quarters where the sect's leader Mohammed Yusuf was based.

Yusuf's home was shelled by forces Tuesday night, along with a mosque where many of his followers had gathered, but Yusuf appeared to have escaped.

A police source said earlier in the day the offensive to rout the militants was likely to take longer than previously thought.

President Umaru Yar'Adua, who placed troops on maximum alert on Monday, had beed optmistic the rebels would be routed within a day.

"We have the situation under control now and I believe that by the end of the day, everything would have been taken care of," Yar'Adua told reporters Tuesday night.

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