Gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram members attacked security forces in northeastern Nigeria, stealing a police vehicle and uniforms, days after a clash with Islamist militants killed a reported 185 people.
The gunmen opened fire on Gashua police station and a Joint Task Force site in Yobe state overnight, Eli Lazarus, a spokesman for the state’s military task force, said today in an e-mailed statement. Two policemen and five suspected militants were killed, he said.
“The fleeing terrorists took away one police Hilux vehicle fitted with a siren at the top, one other vehicle, police uniforms and other items,” Lazarus said. “The terrorists are still around and are bent on wreaking havoc and instilling fear in law-abiding citizens.”
Authorities in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, have been battling an insurgency by Boko Haram that’s killed hundreds of people since 2009 in bomb and gun attacks in the largely Muslim north and the capital, Abuja.
A one-day curfew was imposed today in Gashua town from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. to allow the military to search for the suspects, Abdullahi Bego, special adviser to Yobe Governor Ibrahim Geidam, said by phone from Damaturu, the state capital.
Boko Haram wants to impose Islamic rule on Africa’s most populous nation with more than 160 million people, almost evenly split between a largely Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.
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