6 killed in volatile northeast Nigeria
2011-12-04 20:26
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Nigeria
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Bauchi - Gunmen killed three people on Sunday, including a policemen and a soldier, when they bombed police buildings and a bank in northeast Nigeria, a region beset by attacks by Islamist sects.
The attackers fired assault rifles and threw explosives in the attack early on Sunday on two police stations in Azare, a town in northeast Bauchi state, where the Islamist sect Boko Haram has been blamed for an assault earlier this year.
"One policeman, one soldier, one civilian and three suspected attackers were killed," Ikechukwu Aduba, Bauchi police commissioner, told Reuters.
Witnesses said a bank was looted and the two police buildings were set ablaze.
Boko Haram, whose name translates at "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language, has been blamed for dozens of attacks in northeastern states this year, most of which are aimed at figures in authority.
The sect carried out a prison raid last year in Bauchi, freeing around 700 inmates.
Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for two bombings in the capital Abuja this year, the latest a suicide attack on United Nations headquarters in August, which killed 24 people.