Suspected Boko Haram Islamists razed a police station and killed 14 people, whose charred bodies were found, in an overnight raid in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Gombe, witnesses said Saturday. The city was put under lockdown, with no residents allowed to leave their homes, after the gun and bomb assaults where attackers also tried to break into a prison in a botched attempt to free inmates, witnesses and local radio said.
Boko Haram, responsible for a wave of recent raids in northern and central Nigeria, have repeatedly claimed its members are being illegally held in state prisons and demanded their release. Many of Boko Haram’s recent attacks have targeted the police.
Suspected members of the group also gunned down five worshippers inside a mosque on Friday as evening prayers ended in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city.
Later in Kano explosions were heard. Residents said gunmen stole a car belonging to the country’s electoral commission, but it appeared to have stalled a few hundred metres (yards) later, and they blew it up. Boko Haram’s violent campaign has intensified in recent months and on Thursday Nigeria’s top military chief said the group had formed links with Al-Qaeda’s north Africa branch, known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
“I have seen at least 14 burnt bodies in and around the police station,” a witness in Gombe said on condition of anonymity.
He said he counted 10 bodies inside the police building, adding the victims could be policemen, while four others were found dead in a burned out car outside the station.
“At a roundabout between the police station and the prison there was a car that was burned out with all its four occupants. It’s not clear who they were,” he added.
