[Pak Daily Times] Nigerian troops on Saturday killed 11 fighters from the cut-throats sect 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...
during a shootout in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, a front man said.
"Today, in an exchange of fire during an cordon-and-search operation conducted by the JTF, 11 Boko Haram members were killed," Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Mohammed told, referring to the army's Joint Task Force unit.
Gunmen in Nigeria have killed at least one officer after opening fire on a cop shoppe in the city of Kano, where attacks claimed by Islamists left 185 dead last week, police said on Saturday.
Security forces in Africa's most populous nation and top oil producer are struggling to contain the menace by the Boko Haram Islamist sect that has used increasingly bold tactics to kill more than 200 people this year alone.
The latest attack in Kano, the economic heart of Nigeria's mainly Mohammedan north, occurred just before 7:00 pm (1800 GMT) on Friday, police said on Saturday, confirming the assault first reported by residents.
Gunmen "opened fire on our men and the coppers on duty fired back leading to a shootout," city police front man Magaji Majia said, adding that one officer was killed. Witnesses had previously told two officers had died.
The attack came at the start of a nighttime curfew that has been in effect in the northern city since a January 20 assault by Boko Haram killed 185 people.
Kano had previously evaded the worst of Boko Haram's violence, and the brazen, coordinated strikes that primarily targetted cop shoppes in a major city highlighted the group's renewed strength.
Since then in Kano, another cop shoppe was attacked on Tuesday night, with authorities reporting three people maimed and a German engineer was kidnapped on the outskirts of city on Thursday. Also on Thursday, a Kano bus station was hit, with no one reported being killed. The Friday night attack happened in the Mandawari neighbourhood.
The purported head of Boko Haram, Abubakar Muhammad Shekau, threatened more violence in an audio recording recently posted on YouTube. Boko Haram has previously said that it wants to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's deeply-impoverished mainly Mohammedan north, charging the government with harassing Mohammedans and raiding Islamic schools.
The group was also blamed for coordinated attacks on Christmas Day, the mostly deadly at a Catholic Church near the capital Abuja where at least 44 people were killed, but its victims also include scores of Mohammedans.