Africa

Africa

Four dead in attack on Nigerian police post, bank: residents

31 March 2012 02:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Suspected members of Islamist group Boko Haram on Friday used bombs and gunfire to attack a police station and rob a bank in northeastern Nigeria, with four people feared dead, residents said, APA reports quoting AFP.

Residents said the assailants were in two groups and attacked the two locations nearly simultaneously in the town of Askira Uba, south of the city of Maiduguri, which has been Boko Haram’s base.

"The gunmen came in droves around 11:00 am and attacked the police station with guns and explosives, setting it on fire and killing a police officer and a civilian," one resident said.

"While they were attacking the police station, another group attacked a bank some distance away, killing two people and carting away money from the vault."

Another resident gave a similar account, saying the gunmen overwhelmed the police, who engaged the attackers in a shootout and were forced to withdraw from the station. Police could not be reached for comment.

Boko Haram has carried out scores of such attacks, mainly in the north of Africa’s most populous nation, as part of its increasingly deadly insurgency.

A bid to hold indirect talks between Boko Haram and the government in recent weeks to end the violence appears to have collapsed.