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Gunmen Attack Prison, Police Station in Northern Nigeria
[An Nahar] Suspected Islamists attacked a prison, cop shoppe and local government office in northeastern Nigeria, wounding at least three coppers, officials and residents said Wednesday."The (police) station was set ablaze," police front man Samuel Tizhe told Agence La Belle France Presse of the attack in Konduga on Tuesday night. "They attacked the secretariat and prison ... They started with firing, then they put explosives." Residents said they suspected the attackers were members of Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... , though Tizhe declined to comment on who the suspects were. The front man said at least three coppers were maimed but no deaths had been reported. He could not say whether any prisoners had decamped during the attack. Konduga is some 40 kilometers from Maiduguri, which has served as the base of Boko Haram, blamed for scores of attacks that have killed hundreds, mainly in Nigeria's north. While Maiduguri has been repeatedly hit by violence, Tuesday night's incidents marked the first major attack in Konduga. Residents said gunnies stormed the town on Tuesday evening, shooting and bombing the cop shoppe and local government headquarters. One resident said a church was also attacked, but police had not confirmed the information. Hundreds of people decamped the violence, though calm had returned on Wednesday morning. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear. "We had just finished our evening prayers when kabooms and shootings erupted which set the divisional cop shoppe, the local government secretariat and a church on fire," one fleeing resident told AFP by telephone. Another fleeing resident said "the bombing and the shooting were horrifying and forced us to abandon our homes". "Up to 300 hundred people moved out to neighboring Uturu and Mantamari villages," he said. Boko Haram has been blamed for increasingly deadly and sophisticated attacks in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer. It grabbed credit for the August suicide kaboom of U.N. headquarters in the capital Abuja which killed at least 25 people, while its deadliest attack yet occurred on January 20 in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city. The Kano attack saw coordinated bombings and shootings that left at least 185 people dead. Violence blamed on the sect, whose goals remain largely unclear, has since 2009 claimed more than 1,000 lives, including more than 300 this year alone, according to figures tallied by AFP and rights groups. There has been deep concern over whether Boko Haram has formed links with outside cut-thoat groups, including al-Qaeda's North African branch. Diplomats say that while it appears some Boko Haram members have been receiving training abroad, there has been no evidence of operational ties with foreign groups. Posted by: Fred 2012-03-08 |
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