Boko Haram fighters and suicide bombers kill 11 in Nigeria
ELEVEN people were killed when Boko Haram gunmen and suicide bombers mounted a rare combined attack inside the strategic north-east Nigerian city of Maiduguri, police said yesterday.
The raid came barely a month after a senior Boko Haram commander threatened to attack the city when he was released from government custody in exchange for 82 kidnapped schoolgirls.
Damian Chukwu, the Borno state police commissioner, said one civilian was killed as locals in the Jiddari Polo area of the city fled, while 10 were killed nearby in three separate suicide blasts, one of them at a mosque.
Wednesday night’s attacks took place on the eve of a visit by vice-president Yemi Osinbajo, deputising for Muhammadu Buhari, the unwell president, to launch a major humanitarian aid programme.
Outlying districts of Maiduguri, including the university campus and camps for people displaced by the eight-year insurgency, have been hit repeatedly by Boko Haram suicide bombers.
But armed fighters have not managed to get through the tight security for more than a year.
The raid will likely raise fresh fears about the extent of government and military claims that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant affiliate is all but defeated.
Mr Chukwu and the military both confirmed that troops responded to an attempt by the suspected insurgents to attack a village outside the city.
Fighters thought to be loyal to Boko Haram’s embattled factional leader Abubakar Shekau stormed the Aridawari settlement, firing heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, and burning down homes.
Residents said they then drove towards a military base through the Jiddari Polo area, firing guns and forcing locals to flee, before they headed towards the Giwa military barracks.
Mr Chukwu said police and troops from the Nigerian Army 7th Division stationed in Maiduguri were deployed and “repelled the attack in a gun battle that lasted about an hour”.
“A civilian whose identity is yet to be ascertained was killed in a stampede while a soldier was reported wounded. Normalcy has been restored,” he said in a statement.